Compatibility Problems Between Office 2003 and 2007

James J. Miner

Arpil 2009

A friend writes:

I have a couple of documents that i was trying to send my sister ... I guess they're in microsoft works - the program I just installed ... but she couldn't open them. She asked me to send them in word ... can I do that? I don't know how.

My answer:

The program you installed was not microsoft works. It's Microsoft Office, and it is a suite that includes Microsoft Word. However, you have Microsoft Office 2007 as I recall, and maybe she has Microsoft Office 2003. The two are not compatible (thank you so much, Microsoft). I have a copy of Microsoft Office 2007 on my Mac at home (actually 2008) and have run into this kind of compatibility problem before. What you can do is as follows:

1. Open the document

2. File -> Save As

3. Pull down the "Format" list. There should be a choice for Office 2003, or word 2003, or "compatibility mode", something like that. Choose that.

4. Save

This will save the document in a format that her computer can understand. Note that it might slightly change the filename. For example, in my Apple version, ordinarily if you save to "Docxyz", the filename is actually "Docxyz.docx". However, if you use the trick I just described, it will save it as "Docxyz.doc". So you need to be a little careful when choosing which file to send to her. You want to choose "Docxyz.doc". not "Docxyz.docx".

You can make it do this all the time by using Word preferences.

1. Tools -> Preferences.

2. Save tab

3. Save Word Files as:

4. Select Word 97-2004

Once you do this, you don't have to remember to do the File -> Save As -> Format trick each time you save.