Now that Office 2007 has gone “Gold” and is available for download and soon on retail shelves, it would be a good time to go here and download the “Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats”.

According to Microsoft’s web site this does the following:

 By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. The Compatibility Pack can also be used in conjunction with the Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats. For more information about the Compatibility Pack, see Knowledge Base article 923505.

Since Office 2007 has new formats for everything it is only a matter of time before someone sends you a Word or Excel file that you cannot open with your older version of Office. This option should mitigate the pain somewhat!

Cheers,

Robert Porter