Sharing files with Office 2007

Microsoft Office 2007 has been out for some time now and is being used on many computers. It's just a matter of time before you receive a document written in Word 2007, spreadsheet from Excel 2007 or presentation prepared with PowerPoint 2007, if you haven't received one already. Is your Microsoft Office version ready to handle this?

Microsoft Office 2007 is a very new version of Office. Not only have the menus and icons changed drastically, but the format of the files has changed as well. This means that documents written with Office 2007 programs won't open directly on computers running Office 2003, XP or 2000. But there is a solution to this problem and – best of all – it’s FREE!

If you have an older version of Office, you can get the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack from Microsoft’s web site. The Compatibility Pack will let you read Office 2007 documents in Microsoft Office 2003, XP or 2000. To find this FREE add-in for Microsoft Office, go to www.microsoft.com and enter "office 2007 compatibility pack" in the search box in the upper right of the page. Then, click on the first link that comes up in the search results to get to the download page.

If you are ordering a new computer for business use, we strongly suggest that you purchase Microsoft Office 2003 separately from a local or online vendor, rather than upgrading to Office 2007 at this time. Better yet, contact your local "geek" for a recommendation.