How to manage the compatibility issues of Office 2007 to earlier office versions?

By default all Microsoft Office 2007 applications use the different files extensions than the earlier versions. All earlier Office applications used the file extensions as .doc, .xls and .ppt for Word, Excel and PowerPoint respectively, but now Office 2007 applications uses the .docx, xlsx and .pptx file extensions for Word, Excel and PowerPoint respectively. These all new file extensions are not compatible with all previous versions of Office applications, that is why Office 2002 and Office 2003 applications cannot open and read the .docx, xlsx and .pptx file extensions.

However, you have an option in Office 2007 to save the files with in older files extensions, But if you are frequently using the older versions of the file and also if the files created by you are to be shared on other computers which have earlier versions of Office, you may want to save all your new documents in the older format, but that would create duplicate files.

There is better option in Office 2007 applications to change the default saving file format to the older format and then the new file format in Office 2007 will be changed to .doc, .xls and .ppt for Word, Excel and PowerPoint respectively.

Today we will set the older file format for Word 2007 and other applications will be discussed in the next tips. Follow the given steps to set the default older file format for Word 2007:

First click on Start button, go to Program then click on Microsoft Word 2007 to run the word application.

Now click on File menu in the top left corner then click on Word Options button to change the default word options.

In the left side panel, click on Save option, and now “Customized how documents are saved” option will appear in right side panel.

Here find the “Save File in this format” option and click on drop down box to select the different format. Now you will find many options here, select the Word 97-2003 Document (*doc) option.

Now click on Ok button to save the settings and all new Word files will be created in the format you set as default.