Save a document as .doc instead of as odf or pdf

[Joseph Sinclair]

I agree that Mike should help you with this, as there are many concerns I'm glossing over, but in the interests of anyone else reading who might not have someone to help them readily available, and needs access ASAP, I'll briefly address how to get access to your files from the old account.

The simplest (although not most secure) mechanism for this is to change the group permissions to give your new account read access to the files, and then set up a symbolic link to them.

Here, I assume that your system is, like most newer distributions, set up to place each user in a group with the same name.
I also assume your new account has sudo access, if not, login to the old account to run these commands.

open a terminal and enter the following commands (replace descriptions in <angle brackets> with their value):
To just give your new username access to *read* the old files:
  sudo chgrp -R <new user name> /home/<old user name>/*
  sudo chgrp -R <new user name> /home/<old user name>/.??*
  sudo chmod -R g+r /home/<old user name>/
  sudo -u <new user name> ln -s /home/<old user name> /home/<new user name>/old_user_files
This will make the files available read-only in your (new) homedir under the directory name old_user_files.

If you want to actually *copy* all of the files to the new user, you could do that this way:
  sudo -u <new user name> mkdir /home/<new user name>/old_user_file_copy
  sudo cp -r /home/<old user name>/ /home/<new user name>/old_user_file_copy/
  sudo chown -R <new user name>:<new user name> /home/<new user name>/old_user_file_copy/
This will *copy* the files from the old user's directory to the old_user_file_copy subdirectory for the new user, then change ownership to the new user.

==Joseph++

BTW, your bookmarks and other settings are in hidden files in the old user's home directory, Firefox bookmarks, for instance, are in /home/<old user name>/.mozilla/firefox/<some weird junk>.default/bookmarks.html
You can copy that file to the corresponding (the weird name will be different) location in the new user's home directory and your bookmarks will now be available.
CAUTION, copying the file will remove any bookmarks added since switching to the new user, if you want to keep those, then make a backup copy of the new file, open both files in a text editor, and carefully copy/paste the values from old to new.

Dazed_75 wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 12:26 PM, Thomas McGoldrick <dublintom7 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Help!  I just converted from XP and do enjoy the lack of viruses and all the
>> resulting reformat and reinstall of program exercise.
>> However, I am experiencing a few frustrations.
>>    Recently trying to do a resume upload to Monster.com I hit a stone wall
>> when I tried to browse and upload a converted file that was in pdf format.
>> They required .doc format.  I spend an hour opening, select all, copy and
>> paste into new window and trying to save in .doc but failed.  Finally had to
>> paste directly into the Monster window instead of uploading.
>> Is there a way to do it?
> 
> Quite easily in fact.  Since you mentions .odf, I will assume you are
> using Open Office (Writer) to make the resume.  Just open the resume
> and choose "Save As" from the file menu (just as you used to do in
> Windows).  When the Save As dialog box is up, click on the little
> arrow next to the File Type box and select Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP
> (.doc) from the drop down list before clicking on Save.
> 
>>   And, I recently got bold and asked Mike to change my password and user
>> name on Ubuntu.  That seemed easy enough and will keep my kids off my
>> computer.  But, alas, there is now a sub account (the new one) and I have to
>> go into it and then arrow up to get to the previous user account and if I
>> want anything there (documents) I have to open and read or print or select
>> all, copy and paste into a new document page in the new user account because
>> I am locked out of the old user account.  Is there a way to unlock the old
>> user account?
> 
> Rather than explaining how to do this here, I suggest you ask Mike to
> move your data files from the old account to the new one and change
> their ownership to the new account.  It is not hard to do but I choose
> not to try explaining it now as I am about to go out for some time.
> 
> You might also ask Mike if there is any reason to retain both accounts.
> 
>> Also, that action resulted in the apparent loss of my quick
>> into yahoo upon click on the link to wifi  and also my saved bookmarks.  I
>> have searched and searched and cannot find where they have gone.
>> Any suggestions or advice?
> 
> This should be easy as well, but ask Mike first if he is your support guy.
> 
>> Thanks
>> Tom
>>
>>
>>
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> 
> 

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