Is Office 2007 compatible with previous versions?

Faustus · 13 May 2007 at 15:16

Does anyone know the answer to this question? I have had the offer of MS Office 2007 from my daughter. However, I have read somewhere but cannot remember where about incompatibility issues with previous Office versions - never been an issue before. What I read or think I read concerned "Word". The jist of the article said that if a document is created in Word 2007 then previous versions e.g. Word 2003 cannot open the document without downloading a special application - is this true? The reason I ask is that I often work from home then make amendments to documents at work or send Word documents to other colleagues. If they cannot open them then there seems little point as company policy means all PC's are locked out of downloading and installing applications, from whatever source.

Craig321 · 13 May 2007 at 15:18

Office 2007 can open documents created in 2003 or less easily.

Office 2003 or less need a plug-in to read Office 2007 documents.

csmager · 13 May 2007 at 15:22

Craig321 said:
Office 2007 can open documents created in 2003 or less easily.

Office 2003 or less need a plug-in to read Office 2007 documents.

You can also save in 'Compatibility mode' to be readable natively on 2003 and below.

I would think most companies will be installing the Office 2000-2003 plugin that allows it to read .docx files.

Faustus · 13 May 2007 at 16:11

Craig321 said:
Office 2007 can open documents created in 2003 or less easily.

Office 2003 or less need a plug-in to read Office 2007 documents.

Drat! I have read it right then, I thought that was the case.

Faustus · 13 May 2007 at 16:12

csmager said:
You can also save in 'Compatibility mode' to be readable natively on 2003 and below.

I would think most companies will be installing the Office 2000-2003 plugin that allows it to read .docx files.

If I told you my company jumped straight from Windows 95 to XP you can tell how long we will have to wait for a plugin

csmager · 13 May 2007 at 16:13

Faustus said:
Drat! I have read it right then, I thought that was the case.

Any 'compatiblity mode' file you open will just save straight back to compatibility mode (.doc) as soon as you hit the save button.

It's not like they're out to annoy people.

TheVoice · 13 May 2007 at 16:38

You can set Word 2007 to just save everything as .doc - that way it'll be easily opened by 2003.

MarcLister · 13 May 2007 at 17:37

TheVoice said:
You can set Word 2007 to just save everything as .doc - that way it'll be easily opened by 2003.

Isn't it some kind of "Save files as" and then you just choose whatever previous Office version to save as?

Conrad11 · 13 May 2007 at 17:59

Do you loose the formatting when you save in a compatibility mode (from 2007 for use on 2003 or lower)

Or will it look the same?

csmager · 13 May 2007 at 18:01

Conrad11 said:
Do you loose the formatting when you save in a compatibility mode (from 2007 for use on 2003 or lower)

Or will it look the same?

The same. New features (3D image effects, for example) will just be embedded as images, so you won't be able to edit them.

Conrad11 · 13 May 2007 at 18:01

csmager said:
The same. New features (3D image effects, for example) will just be embedded as images, so you won't be able to edit them.

Ah lovely. Thanks.

TheVoice · 13 May 2007 at 18:31

MarcLister said:
Isn't it some kind of "Save files as" and then you just choose whatever previous Office version to save as?

Yep, but in the Options you can set Word to always save as a certain file type, so you don't have to worry about deliberately saving files into a compatible format.

I don't think certain features such as Word's referencing functions (whereby it stores your citations etc and creates a bibliography for you) will work with the 2003 file formats though. I have a feeling those are .docx only.

rctneil · 13 May 2007 at 19:30

Also, If you open a document in compatibility mode all the new 2007 features which are not in previous version are greyed out or are not visible therefore only giving you options for features that will work with previus versions.

Faustus · 13 May 2007 at 21:05

One down side to Office 2007 at least the Home Office Student Version is that this time MS have left out the Crown Jewel i.e. "Outlook" and only include it in the full version. Outlook is not even in small business version - reason being that greedy small businesses were buying up lots of copies of previous version "MS Office Student Edition" and installing it for business use thereby saving themselves a packet - or so it was alleged. So it's small businesses we've got to thank for it not being included this time around which means a pretty hefty outlay if you really want Outlook.

Faustus · 19 May 2007 at 16:51

My work has just announced yesterday that they have signed up to HUP with MS, that's "home use policy" so as of yesterday I am now entitled to MS Office 2007 Enterprise Edition for nothing more than postage and packing

Put my order in last night, great offer, and it's also saved my daughter the cost of buying it for my birthday

Iraklis F.C. · 20 May 2007 at 13:36

really, who needs outlook when there is thunderbird around?

MarcLister · 20 May 2007 at 13:40

Iraklis F.C. said:
really, who needs outlook when there is thunderbird around?

Amen to that!

Deathwish · 20 May 2007 at 14:46

Iraklis F.C. said:
really, who needs outlook when there is thunderbird around?

Perhaps when you use Exchange?

Yes I am aware that Thunderbird can be made to work with Exchange, you just miss out on all the Outlook integration.

Faustus · 21 May 2007 at 22:00

Iraklis F.C. said:
really, who needs outlook when there is thunderbird around?

I have tried Thunderbird and despite what others may say I don't like it much, it can't hold a candle to Outlook. Besides both the wife and I work for companies that use 100% MS products so we want seamless integration with our workplace environments when working from home. I have had similar arguments on other forums about the benefits or otherwise of using Linux. It's a case of horses for courses and for us the course is Microsoft. We both want out of the box universal integration with other products. Add to that the fact that it's free and one can't really argue against it.