My boss wants to get a new pc with Vista. MS Office 2007 claims full backward compability with office 2003. Does the office 2003 user needs to install something on their computer or a windows update? Anyone try it yet?
ms office 2007 Backward Compability, anyone test it?
- Thread starter Sean Mota
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There is a compatibility pack for Office 2003 at M$ site but it huge. The simpler solution is to save all documents from Office 2007 in the backward compatible format and it really works.
That's what we do, but so far I've only "upgraded"
one person.
The only reason we started this conversion is because other firms we deal with use '07. And they don't back convert, and they want input on those documents in the format they were sent.
one person.The only reason we started this conversion is because other firms we deal with use '07. And they don't back convert, and they want input on those documents in the format they were sent.
I have installed 2007 on a few machines now. On the older offices I installed the compatiblity package so they can read/write the new format.
I questioned this awhile back and was advised by users here to get the plugin. I did and it allows my Office 2000 to open all word and excel spreadsheets saved to the 2007 file extension. Then I can edit and save them to Office 2000. I was planning to make the upgrade here on one machine but with this plugin I don't need to. It was free!
yeah...the compatibility pack is a big download (~25MB), but it does work pretty well. No problems with it so far.
I question the claim that "other firms we deal with use '07". The change in the user interface from previous version of Office to the new ribbon-based interface in 2007 is a huge paradigm-shift in how things are done. We decided against upgrading to Office 2007, not because of the cost to upgrade, but due to training costs. We deployed the Off2K7 compatibility pack via SMS to all our Office users to cover the quoted situation, just in case.
Don't save in .docx or any of the new formats...just choose the standard formats from the drop down list and it works fine.
Counting on every end user to follow that instruction is impossible. I still have users who open attachments from unknown sources.
The folks I work for use it. Hell, I think they had it on beta or something. The first time they sent me one of those files, I said "WTF," goggled the extension and found ways to read it without downloading that compatibility pack. I did that (compatibility pack) one night right before I hit the sack. I don't know how long it took---didn't wait to see. I just installed the next morning and no big deal. It would have been nice if they said "BTW we are getting office 2007" They did the same thing with streets and trips. Dropped it and started using mappoint with no warning. I don't like bill gate$ enough to spend that kind of jack. I used the demo of mappoint, but it seemed like the exact same thing as S&T.
Besides, I thought there wasn't much difference between 03 and 07. An interview I heard said office did everything people wanted it to do, they just made some stuff easier to do. What the hell does that mean? An extra row of buttons to piss me off or another paperclip guy?
25MB is a big download?
You guys aren't IT professionals I can tell.
Try downloading OS images @ 4GB each.
Cheers,
