Have you started receiving Word documents, Excel Spreadsheets or PowerPoint Presentations that you could not open in your version of Microsoft Office? Recently the crew here in Seattle has received questions from brokers having issues opening documents they obtained from their customers. After investigating these issues, I discovered that they were a result of the new version of Microsoft Office 2007.

The new version of Microsoft Office has new file formats and file extensions – therefore documents written with Office 2007 programs won’t open directly on computers running Office 2003, XP, 2000 or Office 97. The most conspicuous change is the addition of an “x” to the end of the document extension. For example, an Excel spreadsheet is now saved as a “.xlsx” file instead of an “.xls”. Similarly, a Word document is now “.docx” instead of “.doc”.

As more people start using Microsoft Office 2007, you may start to encounter these new file formats more often. It can be embarrassing to ask clients to save and resend documents in another format. Thankfully, Microsoft has created a free compatibility pack that will let you view and edit the new file types using Office 2000 or Office 2003. To make your current version of word up-to-date, click on the link below.

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats

Yours,

Larry Rains
Marketing Manager