Backward/Forward Compatibility

For anyone who uses Microsoft Office regularly to share information with other staff or students (both on PCs and Macs) you may have started to notice difficulties since Office 2007 came out. With the new Office release comes new standard file formats that are not backwards-compatible with older versions.

In Word .doc has become .docx, in Excel .xls has become .xlsx, etc., and this has caused quite a few difficulties. In reality these changes are a step forward for Microsoft as these document formats are becoming the standard for these types of documents and are readable by more programs that are not specific to Microsoft.

Fellow staff Kendall passed on a message from Todd Johnson to make me aware of a patch that is available for those of you who have older versions of Office so that you can open, read and edit these newer formats. I poked around on the Microsoft site a bit and came across it here (unfortunately the problem is for both Macs and PCs, but the solution is Windows only):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466

Follow the instructions on the page to get it for yourself, make sure you read the system requirements (basically if you have an older version of MS Office or even just PowerPoint viewer it will work).

Note to Mac Users: I did look for a similar update for the Mac versions of MS Office, I couldn’t find anything. If any of you know where this would be comment below and I will make sure I update you all on it.

Saving as a PDF from Office 2007

If you’re one of the up-to-date few that already have Office 2007 running on your machine there is now another (and better) option for getting your files into PDF format. Dave commented on the last PDF post and shared the link there. It is also an update from Microsoft itself:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4d951911-3e7e-4ae6-b059-a2e79ed87041

This update is only for Microsoft Office 2007, it will not work with older versions or with other programs. If you still want to be able to “print to PDF” from other programs besides MS Office (or if you are running and older version) head back to the post on PDF-ing your documents and download CutePDF from there.

Over the past few weeks I’ve (with the help of a friend or two) posted about a lot of things that I know about. Now, don’t get worried – I still have plenty of ideas to carry me through. At the same time I want this site to be useful to you, the reader. So, please, take some time and hit the “comments” link and answer a few questions for me:

1. How has the “tech depth” of the posts been so far?
   • Too deep – I don’t get it.
   • Just right – I’m learning how to swim.
   • Too lite – I could have written these.
2. What would you like me to post about in the near future?
3. Is there any other feedback you want to give me?