MS Office 2010 Beta
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Depends what you save it as. Starting with Office 2007, Microsoft has changed the format, so now instead of .doc you have .docx for example. People with prior versions of Office (like 2003 or 2000) won't be able to open these .docx documents; however, there is a free add-on on MS's website that they can download to view these newer document types.
Alternatively, Office 2007 (and 2010 I presume) gives you the option of saving the documents in older .doc format so that they can be opened on these old MS Office suites without needing any add-ons/converters.
Alternatively, Office 2007 (and 2010 I presume) gives you the option of saving the documents in older .doc format so that they can be opened on these old MS Office suites without needing any add-ons/converters.
Wonder what their logic was in changing the extension?
Originally Posted By: SrDriver
Wonder what their logic was in changing the extension?
It wasn't just the extension: They changed the format profoundly, and the extension was probably just a way to help differentiate formats.
Wonder what their logic was in changing the extension?
It wasn't just the extension: They changed the format profoundly, and the extension was probably just a way to help differentiate formats.
the old extensions from Office 2003 & prior were differentiated by at 3-digit extension: DOC, XLS, PPT.
Now with Office 2007 and newer, there are 4 digit extensions: DOCX, XLSX, PPTX.
The Office 2003 formats were binary. The new formats are actually zipped files. Try it. Take one of the new format documents, unzip with 7-zip or WinRAR (or equivalent), then inspect the unzipped files. XML, plus images, plus audio/video, plus formulas & formatting.
Also, the new formats take up a lot less space than the old formats. A new blank DOCX file takes up about 9K of space, a new blank DOC file takes up about 24-26K of space.
The new formats need to be handled by email servers correctly as it is a different format as you can see. By now most every email server in the world treats the new formats correctly. Except Exchange 2003 web mail, which treats it like a zipped file (like it truly is, but....) that confuses the end-user.
If you have Office 2003 and don't want to pay for a new Office 2007 (or Office 2010) version, use an Open Office derivative called Go-Open Office, www.go-oo.org. It contains many import/export filters that aren't in the standard Open Office product. Nifty, free.
Sometimes, people will bring in documents made at home from Microsoft Works. Of course, these don't open nicely in MS Office (hello, Microsoft!). Just installing Go-OO makes the end-users life easier as they now have a way of working on those documents, w/o any additional costs.
Now with Office 2007 and newer, there are 4 digit extensions: DOCX, XLSX, PPTX.
The Office 2003 formats were binary. The new formats are actually zipped files. Try it. Take one of the new format documents, unzip with 7-zip or WinRAR (or equivalent), then inspect the unzipped files. XML, plus images, plus audio/video, plus formulas & formatting.
Also, the new formats take up a lot less space than the old formats. A new blank DOCX file takes up about 9K of space, a new blank DOC file takes up about 24-26K of space.
The new formats need to be handled by email servers correctly as it is a different format as you can see. By now most every email server in the world treats the new formats correctly. Except Exchange 2003 web mail, which treats it like a zipped file (like it truly is, but....) that confuses the end-user.
If you have Office 2003 and don't want to pay for a new Office 2007 (or Office 2010) version, use an Open Office derivative called Go-Open Office, www.go-oo.org. It contains many import/export filters that aren't in the standard Open Office product. Nifty, free.
Sometimes, people will bring in documents made at home from Microsoft Works. Of course, these don't open nicely in MS Office (hello, Microsoft!). Just installing Go-OO makes the end-users life easier as they now have a way of working on those documents, w/o any additional costs.
After I got used to some of the changes of Office 2010, I can't use Office 2007 anymore. 2010 is a really good product.
And it runs surprisingly well on older computers on WinXP.
Nice to see Microsoft (finally) making software that runs *faster* than the previous version.
And it runs surprisingly well on older computers on WinXP.
Nice to see Microsoft (finally) making software that runs *faster* than the previous version.
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