Did you know that docs in the Word version in Microsoft Office 2007

[Critters2]

can't be opened by earlier versions of Word? My assistant learned this when another church sent us a document this afternoon.

What is the point of that? Business-wise, I'm every bit as smart as Bill Gates. If I knew the first thing about computers, I could be a brazilianaire, too.

[KitchenWitch]

1. I have Office 2003, but Word 2007 documents hang up.

I can open them but they hang in my system.

x(

I am the editor for the school newsletter and everyone has been sending me stuff in Word 2007.

Not good.

I have had to blast out an email asking folks to send their submissions to me as actual text within the email. What a royal PITA.

[DarkTirade]

23. I've only used 2007 once

but I assume that you can tell it to save as an earlier version. All versions of Word before now have allowed you to do that.

Although to ensure cross-compatability, I usually save as .rtf files. (Rich Text Files)

[KitchenWitch]

25. I have teachers from my daughter's school sending me stuff

I am not sure I can assure that they will all remember to save as office 2003 file.

I am going to try that compatibility patch, and hope it works.

[DarkTirade]

28. That, or download Open Office. :)

That's what I'm using now. I had a legal copy of Word, but didn't have the CD for it. So when my harddrive died and I had to reinstall Windows... whoops. All gone.

[RoyGBiv]

2. The point is simple ...

Encourage people to buy Office 2007 so you can open all the documents you might get.

You might be all rebellious and not go for it, but someone is going to have that one person/organization they communicate with who does, and then ya just gotta upgrade.

It's the way they've always worked.

In the mean time, you can ask those who send you documents that use 2007 to save in the older format.

[mwooldri]

11. There is another solution, one that doesn't like Micro$haft's profits..

... download the latest edition of OpenOffice. They can make sense of Office 2007 documents.

[Critters2]

15. Oh, yeah. That's what I have on my laptop. What was I thinking?

Thanks for the reminder.

[harmonicon]

16. do you really like OpenOffice?

I just installed it this week, and I'm not too happy with it. It seems functional enough, but the layout isn't the best, and it seems to run quite slow. I should point out that this is with mac OSX, which it isn't optimally designed for, but it seems like it ought to be better (yeah, for free.... I should complain). I'm thinking of trying something else, but I'm not sure what - I'd rather not spend my time downloading and testing different free office suites.

[mwooldri]

18. Well it is an alternative but you're right maybe not the best alternative for everyone.

If it were a true Microsoft killer then everyone would be using it.

If you're stuck in Linuxland it's probably the best office app there is without having to go to proprietary software and fudging it to get Office to work on Linux.

But yep complaints about OpenOffice are needed because that is how it gets improved too. It's in a lot of cases doing things a different way - like Office 2007 is different to earlier versions - toolbar layouts different etc. there is a learning gap there. But there is a bigger learning gap from office anything to Openoffice then it is from office 2003 to office 2007.

I use both, basically because I've only got a licence for one Microsoft Office 2003 and have more than one computer.

Mark.

[harmonicon]

21. I haven't had any sort of decent office program since 2003

Still, none of them seem to have changed that much. Maybe if I were some sort of power user constantly making spreadsheets and things there would be a bigger learning curve. I'd just like to have something that fits in better with OSX at large. Some things about it, like key shortcuts, are done based on a windows standard instead of mac. That just seems really strange to me.

[MorningGlow]

36. Do you have OpenOffice or NeoOffice?

I downloaded NeoOffice because it's a version of OpenOffice for the Mac. That might work better for you. I like it well enough, but for some weird reason it doesn't make apostrophes "curly" although the quotation marks are. :shrug:

[harmonicon]

37. OpenOffice, not NeoOffice

I looked at NeoOffice, but since it's based on OO, I didn't really see the positives. For instance, if OO is updated, wouldn't it take them some time to then update N.O.? I may try it out though. Does it seem to run slowly? That's one of my gripes of OO. The other is that it's set to work with windows shortcuts, not mac shortcuts, so I have to do an openapple+C to copy something, then a ctrl+V to paste it into OO. It's just one thing to think about when trying to get work done that should be something my brain does on autopilot.

[MorningGlow]

38. I get notification of regular updates of NeoOffice

I use all my regular Mac commands, and it's as fast as Word. It opens Excel docs, Word docs (including .docx), etc., and you can save docs a bunch of different ways, including as several versions of WOrd. The only other complaint I have (besides the non-curly apostrophes) is all documents open in print view, so I have to constantly uncheck that option in the menu so I can resize the windows to make them narrower (for instance, if I want to see two documents side by side on my laptop screen but have the text wrap).

I'd recommend downloading NeoOffice--see how you like it.

[harmonicon]

39. I think I'll do that

Thanks for the info.

About the apostrophe thing: is it in all fonts, or just one? Could it be some font problem, or the way that NO is working with a certain font?

[MorningGlow]

40. There are a LOT of fonts, so I can't say definitively

But when I realized the apostrophes were straight, I tried changing the text to a few different fonts and they all came out straight. The weird thing is, if I copy and paste text from Word or someplace else that DOES have curly apostrophes, they're retained in NeoOffice (but if I type some new text, I get straight apostrophes). :crazy:

[TreasonousBastard]

41. I don't like OO much either, and it...

has problems choking on Word docs, too.

My personal favorite is WordPerfect, but I think they gave up on the Mac years ago. And some Word docs choke anything, even word.

OTOH, AbiWord is free, has a Mac version, and does most of what most people want.

http://www.abisource.com/

Back when I was doing newsletters, I was thinking of getting a Mac and iWork. Never had hands on with it, but from all the descriptions I saw or heard, it seemed to be better at what I needed than just about anything else out there. A hundredd bucks is a hundred bucks, but it may be discounted somewhere. If not, it's worth the price if you need something better than Apple Works and don't want Office.

[RoyGBiv]

17. Yeah, I know ...

I's just answering the question and know from experience that suggesting people dump the thing they just paid for to get something free that does the same thing tends to irritate them. :)

[mainegreen]

27. My understanding is that open office will support docx only in 3, which is beta.

:shrug:

[mwooldri]

35. You're correct...

Maybe I just assumed that OpenOffice opened up .docx natively because on Ubuntu it does open it up by itself without me having to do add-ons. However I did a bit of poking around and Novell ended up releasing a patch to OpenOffice 2.? to allow it to open .docx files. Seems like the Ubuntu crew added it to its distribution of OpenOffice and sent out an update flag - my system downloaded the update and hey presto! I could open .docx in OpenOffice without having to wait for version 3.

Either way I guess you need a converter if you don't run Office 2007.

Mark.

[jeff30997]

3. Yep,I know you're smart ,dude.

But for the peoples who work for Microshaft I have doubts.:)

[Pavulon]

4. Save AS

word 97 - 2003. Its in the annoying stupid button menu.

If you do get a docx you can just rename the extension to doc and 99% will open. This is not recommended.

Just email them and ask them to use the save as option.

[Critters2]

7. That's really good to know. Thanks! nt

[PeaceNikki]

10. You can change it to always save as Word 97-2003 doc

Click on the office button and go to Word Options
Click on "Save" and change option to "Word 97-2003 document"

[Critters2]

12. The problem is that it was sent here. We have Word 2003 in the office, the doc

was sent in 2007. So, when it opens, it's just gobbledy-gook.

[PeaceNikki]

13. D'oh.

Missed that part. Here's the download for the compatibility pack:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100444731033.aspx

[Critters2]

14. Thanks. I just e-mailed the link to my assistant. nt

[ashling]

5. Makes sense

The whole point of creating a new/improved version is to add new stuff that the earlier version couldn't do. Anyone with the 2007 vesion can, however, save the document in 2003 so that it will open in the earlier version.

[Taverner]

6. You can download an add on for previous versions of Word that lets you view them

Not sure the link - I can get it if you need

[Critters2]

8. I'll look for it. Thanks! nt

[PeaceNikki]

9. oops posted in wrong place

[hobbit709]

19. It's just as bad in the other direction

2007 wont open 97 or 2000 docs half the time.
I use WordPerfect, it opens it's own versions all the way to 4.0for DOS, along with word docs and a shitload of other formats too.

[suninvited]

20. How much

is a brazilianaire?

[Critters2]

22. LOL!! nt

[mainegreen]

24. docx. It's a way to force people to upgrade. There is a way out if you get a docx file!

Download microsofts FREE word viewer and install:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=95E24C87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displaylang=en

Then download the microsoft compatability pack for office 2007 and install:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en

and you should be all set to go!

Edited to add: If you already have office the compatibility pack should be all you need!

[billyskank]

29. And also declare undying hatred on the jerkoff who sent you a docx file.

Send them back an ODF file to fuck em off. :evilgrin:

[Rabrrrrrr]

26. That's because the Word 2007 docs are using the new narrow traction bogies

[krispos42]

30. I'm still in Office '97

I'm running it on my awesome 300MHz Pentium II with Windows 98 SE, 512 megs of RAM, and 800 meg hard drive. And this 56k modem is KICKIN'!!!!

:woohoo:

<on edit: off by a decade>

[KitchenWitch]

31. Office '07 or Office '97?

[krispos42]

32. '97...

I wasn't kidding about that part...


:hide:

[KitchenWitch]

33. Read your first post, you put '07, thus the confusion.

Office '97 was probably the best MS Office suite ever. At 2003 it became so fucking bloated. I edit the school newsletter and I am always having to futz with the formatting because Word 2003 is always making assumptions regarding the formatting of the document.

[krispos42]

34. D'oh!

I fixed it.

Thanks...

[jmowreader]

42. This is really starting to piss my boss off

He has finally given up on buying desktop inkjet printers, and just emails me his contracts so I can print them on my laser printer. Unfortunately, he's the only person in the shop who can handle DOCX files...so he has to backsave everything. Ugh.