Currently there's a mix of Microsoft Office versions on campus and during the
period of transition to Office 2007 we're going to have to deal with the
incompatibility of the new Office file format with the old. Along with Microsoft
Office 2007 comes a change in the default format that Office documents are saved.
The new file format, called Office Open XML Formats, is incompatible with previous
versions of the Office suite however the binary file format used in Microsoft Office
97 through Microsoft Office 2003 Editions is still available as a save format in
Office 2007, but it is no longer the default when saving new documents.
Office 2007 users, to make sure your Office files can be viewed by others save
your file so it's compatible with older versions of Office using the Save_as
feature and selecting what is appropriate.
Office 2003 Windows users, if you end up with a file in the default Office 2007
format and find you can't open it, then you can download the "Microsoft Office
Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats" add-on.
This will allow you to open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations
in the file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. Download from:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en
Mac users, with the Office Open XML Converter, you can convert Office Open XML
files to a format that is compatible with Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac and Microsoft
Office v. X for Mac. You can choose to convert and open one file, or convert a
large number of files. Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac
0.2 (Beta) Download from:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx?pid=download&location=/mac/download/Office2004/ConverterBeta_0_2.xml