Summary: Office 2007 introduces a new XML based file format for its documents. There's a download for older versions off office to read and write the new format.
I have Microsoft Office 2003 on my computer. Friends of mine are sending me e-mail with attachments but are using Office 2007. Is there any way to convert Office 2003 to open e-mails from Office 2007?
•
Office 2007 introduces a new file format which is, of course, incompatible with previous versions of Microsoft office. So if you receive a document that someone has saved in Office 2007 format, but all you have is an earlier version of Office that can't read it, there are some steps you need to take.
But I also need to nit-pick one part of your question as well.
•
You asked "Is there any way to convert Office 2003 to open e-mails from Office 2007?" Emails should open just fine. Email messages are sent and received in a format common to all mail programs, and no conversion should be necessary.
You should also be able to save any attached documents. Again, attachments themselves are encoded into email in a standard way that has not changed. It's the format of the attached files themselves that has changed, and the program that's used to open the attached files needs to be able to handle their new file format.
You could, of course, ask your friends to save their files in the older format. This isn't the first time Office has changed formats, Microsoft Office has a fine track record of being able to save in older formats each time they change to new ones. Your friend could save his file in Office 2003 format before he sends it to you and you'd be able to read it like nothing changed.
What's unique this time is that Microsoft has made converters available for older versions of Office.
Download and install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. (Take special care to read the Overview on that page - it's important that you have all High Priority updates from Microsoft Update installed before you install the converters.)
The compatibility pack works with Office 2000, Office XP and Office 2003.
Related:
-
Ask Leo! - Why does my Microsoft Word document display differently on different computers?
-
Ask Leo! - How do I convert a Word document into a PDF file?
Article C2957 - March 8, 2007
Thanks for the help! Worked like a charm!
Posted by: Rhonda Chin at July 30, 2008 12:39 PMi am having set of xlsx and pptx files, need to convert those to xls and ppt. but the command line is not doing any help.
I have downloaded the office compatibility pack and installed, then i tried for the xlsx to xls conversion
c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12>excelcnv -oice c:\xl.xlsx c:\xl.xls
it gives out a xl.xls but its just the copy of my input xlsx file when i open that file in the office 2000 it gives error. i just renamed the xl.xls to xl.zip, now i can see the xmls inside. so it just created the copy of my input file and renamed it to xl.xls.
Any help on this highly appreciated.
Thanks
Posted by: Arunkumar at August 5, 2008 6:23 AMDear leo,
Posted by: kashif at December 15, 2008 7:35 AMi want to attach my resume at a website which is in msworls2003.how i can change it in doc,docs file extension.
I just installed Office Pro '07 over my old Office 2000. The new program comes up fine, but won't open my old docs. I did download all the updates & the service pack that is mentioned above. Still nothing. Any other ideas?
Posted by: Fred Stella at January 9, 2009 3:18 PMVista machines are being rolled out to clients with Win2007 MSOffice, which produces files with new file extensions, which our process does not recognize.Need to Update our process to handle the new file extensions produced in MSOffice 2007.
Posted by: Nitin at January 27, 2009 2:29 AM1.Please tell us what type of code chnges required ?
2. Do we need the new jar for this?
Hi Leo
I have Microsoft Office Word 2007 and my researcher in America is asking me to switch to a lower version so they can open an attachment I sent from Australia. Can you please help?
With thanks, Bev
28-Apr-2009
Article says pack only works as far back as Office 2000. I still use Office 97, and it's really all I need so I don't want to upgrade. Is there a compatibility pack available to work with Word 97?
12-Sep-2009
Posted by: Arthur J Gross at September 9, 2009 8:00 AM
hi leo,
Posted by: buddy at October 4, 2009 1:27 PMthis is m and the thing is i got the same problem as same as other mentioned above , in the above information furnished it says about to have the all high priority updates from
microsoft update install,before anyone install the converter
so , can u let me know how to check whether
i have updates to install the converter for the files of 2007 office documents.
Hello Leo, I have just installed all the Windows XP and Office Updates (also the "High Priority" of course). I installed also the recommended "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats" But when I try to open an Excel 2007 file my office 2003 seems to open it but keep eating CPU time and running forever without let me read or work in the file... Can you help me, please? Thanks!
Posted by: George at October 28, 2009 9:51 AMcannot open either word 2003 or 2007 in office 2007. used to have office 2003 and recently changed to 2007. when i try to open, it says "not available" what should i do?
Posted by: Samuel at November 9, 2009 12:49 PM