Gallery: Make Office 2007 files more compatible

Office 2000, XP and 2003 users should download the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack from the Microsoft website. The full website address for this download is very long, so we’ve created a link to it using a redirect service called Tinyurl. So, launch your web browser, type www.tinyurl.com/3xr4tt into the Address or Location bar, and press Enter. When our site appears, click the link near the bottom to be redirected to the page of Microsoft’s website. Now click the Download button and save the file to the Windows Desktop – it’s 27.5MB, so one for broadband users only. Once downloaded, double-click FileFormatConverters.exe and follow the instructions to install it. After installing, you’ll be able to use Word 2007, Excel 2007 and Powerpoint 2007 documents in earlier version of Office. You can open, edit and save documents in these formats – choose File, followed by Save As and pick the appropriate option from the Save as type dropdown list.

Office 2007 users can also make it easier for other people to open documents in older versions of Office by saving them in a compatible format. Click the Office logo button and choose Save As to bring up a sub-menu with the necessary options. Select Word 97-2003 Document in Word, Excel 97-2003 Workbook in Excel or Powerpoint 97-2003 Presentation in Powerpoint. Access users should select Access 2000 Database for maximum compatibility, or Access 2002-2003 Database if the recipient has a later version of Office installed, to ensure more features in the original database are preserved.

Office 2007 users who regularly need to share documents with older versions of Office should change the settings to automatically save in the older format. Click the Office button, followed by the Options button. Access users should then choose either Access 2000 or Access 2002-3 under Default File Format; Word, Excel and Powerpoint users should first select Save from the left-hand menu, then click the ‘Save files in this format’ dropdown button and choose ‘Word 97-2003 document (*.doc)’ in Word,‘Excel 97-2003 Workbook’ in Excel or ‘PowerPoint Presentation 97-2003’ in Powerpoint before clicking OK.

Office 2007 users who regularly need to share documents with older versions of Office should change the settings to automatically save in the older format. Click the Office button, followed by the Options button. Access users should then choose either Access 2000 or Access 2002-3 under Default File Format; Word, Excel and Powerpoint users should first select Save from the left-hand menu, then click the ‘Save files in this format’ dropdown button and choose ‘Word 97-2003 document (*.doc)’ in Word,‘Excel 97-2003 Workbook’ in Excel or ‘PowerPoint Presentation 97-2003’ in Powerpoint before clicking OK.