MS Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, PowerPoint 2007

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 file formats.

However, in the meantime, I thought I’d share a very handy tip - especially since so many of us are still using MS Office 2003 but more and more are using MS Office 2007 (which has some amazing features which I am looking forward to sharing with you).

If you are still using MS Office 2000 or 2003 but someone has sent you a PowerPoint presentation (.pptx), MS Word document (.docx) or Excel document using 2007, just click here and download the Compatibility Pack and you will have no trouble in viewing these documents.

So, for people using MS Office 2007, you don’t have to save your document “down” to a previous version for others not using 2007 to view it.  Perhaps you could include this link when emailing a document to someone who is not using 2007 and ask them to download the Pack.  Anyone creating a document using MS Office 2000 or 2003 (if you are using a previous version, sorry - but you really need to upgrade), people using 2007 will have no trouble viewing your documents.

The only downside when opening up a document prepared in Excel 2007 and if you are using Excel 2003, is that it might not look exactly as it does if you are viewing the document in Excel 2007.  For example, Excel 2007 has some brilliant new colour schemes that do not seem to convert in 2003.  So, if you want someone to see exactly what it is you have prepared in Excel 2007, perhaps send them a PDF of the document.