Microsoft Office 2007 will hit corporate desktops this month while consumers like you and me will be able to buy the full retail version of Office Vista starting January 2007.It's just a matter of few weeks before we start exchanging documents written in Word 2007, spreadsheets charted in Excel 2007 or presentations prepared with PowerPoint 2007. Is your Microsoft Office version ready to handle this ?
A new version of Microsoft Office means new [or better] file formats and file extensions - therefore documents written with Office 2007 programs won't open directly on computers running Office 2003, XP, 2000 or Office 97.
What's the alternative for users who won't immediately migrate to Office 2007 ? Well, there's absolutely no reason to worry about such issues. The good guys from the Microsoft Office team at Redmond have created some wonderful document converters, viewers and other useful add-ons that won't let old Office users feel paralyzed in any form.
Let's look at some of the possible scenarios and the workarounds.
How do I Open Office 2007 Documents in Office 2003 ?
Get the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. The Compatibility Pack will let you read Office 2007 documents in Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003. So you can open a .docx file with Word 2003 or .pptx with PowerPoint 2003.
Download Office 2007 Compatibility Pack
How do I create and save documents in Office 2007 XML format using Office 2003 or earlier versions ?
It's very easy to create a Word 2007 document using Word 2003 or even Word XP. Just download the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack outlined above.
This pack allows you to create 2007 versions of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files by opening a blank file and using the Save As command in your version of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.
I don't have any version of Microsoft Office, can I still open Office 2007 documents ?
Sure. Microsoft has released free document viewers for all popular Office programs that let you read or view Office files without having to install the corresponding program.
For example, you can open and read a Word 2007 document on a machine that doesn't have Word 2007 or any of the other Microsoft Office programs.
Download Visio 2007 Viewer - The Visio 2007 Viewer allows anyone to view Visio drawings and diagrams created with Visio 2007 or earlier versions. The Visio 2007 Viewer is implemented as an ActiveX control that loads and renders Visio drawings inside Internet Explorer.
Download PowerPoint Viewer 2007 - View presentations created in PowerPoint 97 and later versions. Supports password-protected PPT files but not macros. You can view and print presentations, but you cannot edit them in the PowerPoint Viewer 2007.
Similarly, there will be a Word 2007 viewer and Excel 2007 viewer program that will be shipped before Office 2007 hits the retail shelves. Check the Office Download center for updates.
Until then, you can use the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack with your Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in the new Office 2007 formats.
What are other important Microsoft addons for Office 2007 and Office 2003 users ?Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office 2007 - an add-on to Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 that enables you to build application-level add-ins for applications in the 2007 Microsoft Office system and the Microsoft Office 2003 System. Also supports InfoPath 2007.
Word 2007 Redaction - Word 2007 Redaction Add-in makes it easy for you to mark sections of a document for redaction. You can then redact the document so that the sections you specified are blacked out and cannot be converted back to text or retrieved.
Office 97 File Converter Pack - provides file converters and image filters for Microsoft Office programs, from Office 97 to Office 2003.
Office 2007 Save As PDF - free add-on for Office 2007 to export Word 2007 documents or Excel 2007 Spreadsheets to PDF files without requiring Acrobat Writer.
Update: You do not require Windows Vista to run Office 2007. It will work perfect with Windows XP SP2.
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