Sun City Hilton Head Computer Club

Special Bulletin Revised June 10, 2008

Please do not answer this bulletin using the “Reply” button. Instead, create a new email and send feedback, comments, and questions to allyn.perdue@gmail.com.

All users of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint should read this advisory.

Applies to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, and Office 2003 with Word, Excel, and/or PowerPoint. Office 97 applications are not supported.

Microsoft Office 2007 File Format Compatibility Pack

Microsoft Office 2007 by default creates and saves in the new and more efficient Microsoft OpenXML document structure. Most importantly, Microsoft Word now saves in the new format with the *.docx extension. In order for users of earlier versions to read and save the new format, Microsoft provides a Compatibility Pack that allows reading and saving *.docx files as *.docx, *.doc, and other standard formats.

To apply the Compatibility Pack, Office XP and Office 2003 must first be updated to include certain security updates. The simplest way to ensure that Office XP and Office 2003 are up to date is to use Microsoft Update for Windows and other Microsoft product updates. Optionally, users of the Windows XP and Windows 2000 Professional operating systems may use Office Update to update their Office applications. Full details of the prerequisites may be found in Microsoft Knowledgebase Article 924074.

The Compatibility Pack also applies to Excel and PowerPoint and should work with Microsoft Works Suite Word 2000 and Word 2002 installations.

For full instructions from A to Z, see Microsoft Office Help and Support Article ID 923505.

The Office 2007 File Compatibility Pack is a 27 MB download best obtained via a broadband connection such as Time Warner Cable/RoadRunner high speed or Hargray DSL. Dial up users may visit the Computer Room and use one of the resident workstations to obtain the Compatibility Pack. It will fit easily on a USB flash drive or CD.

How to change the Office 2007 Default File Save Format

To ensure compatibility for recipients of newsletters and bulletins who may not know about or be able to obtain the Compatibility Pack, changing Office 2007 to save in earlier formats is advised. It is easy to change back later when OpenXML becomes more common.

Users of Office 2007 may change their default save formats to *.doc, *.xls, and *.ppt by individually opening Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and doing the following:

Click the Office button.

Click Word, Excel, or PowerPoint Options button and click Save.

Use the drop-down menu to respectively select Word 97-2003 *.doc, Excel Worksheet 97-2003, and PowerPoint Presentation 97-2003, then click OK and close the applications.

Allyn Perdue
SCHHCC TCOM Member