Microsoft Office 2007 compatibility

So, someone has sent you a document from Microsoft Office 2007 and your version of Office can't read it? That's because Office 2007 creates its files in a new format.

Several fixes are available for this situation:

1. Contact the person who made the document. Tell them that most other people who use Microsoft or other word processing programs can't read the files they are creating. Suggest that they save the document in the older, more popular Microsoft Office 97/2000/XP/2003 format.
To do so, they should manually select the “File Save As” option instead of just clicking on the Save button, then select the file type and format as “Word/Excel/PowerPoint 97-2003 Document” (.doc, .xls, .ppt) format in the dialog box prompt.

2. Better yet, have the Office 2007 user set their default output format to the Office 97/2000/XP/2003 format. That way they don't have to remember to save every document in the older format. Instructions for Word and Excel are available in this PDF.

3. Okay, so you've done your part to help that one Office 2007 user. Sooner or later you'll receive an Office 2007 document that you just have to open. Prepare for that situation by installing the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack:

First, make sure your Microsoft Office is up to date. Quoting Microsoft, "To install the Compatibility Pack in Office XP or in Office 2003, update Office, and then install the Compatibility Pack. If you are running Office 2000, there are no updates that you must install before you install the Compatibility Pack." You can update your Microsoft Office at Microsoft's Office Update site. If you're running Office 2003, you can download Office 2003 Service Pack 3 here. I hope you're not in a hurry; Office 2003 SP3 is 117 megabytes!

After you've updated Microsoft Office you're ready to download and install the Compatibility Pack. You might find it listed under Popular Downloads here, or you can download it here. Complete instructions can be found here.