and other irrelevant chit-chat 
Yes, I use the Mac version of Open Office (called Neo Office to avoid confusion) and it integrates pretty flawlessly with actual MS Office products.
You can select the save-as format from a pop-up menu, or just change the application preferences to save in MS format, otherwise, it saves in a virtually un-sharable 'native' format (.odt) that can't be read by anything. I suspect then native format is a legal work-around.
I was unable get the old avatars reimported. Regretfully, you will have to upload your avatar again. Please report any issues here,.