~ It's a beautiful world ~
So you have a new computer, and it came loaded with the latest Microsoft Office 2007 software. All seems well (aside from getting used to the new ribbon-style interface), until you e-mail a document to a friend and they complain they cannot open it. What happened?
In usual fashion, Microsoft’s new Word 2007 file format is not compatible with earlier versions of Word, so people still using Word 2003 or earlier cannot read the new “.docx” file types.
What can you do? No worries. You have two options.
Save As, Word 2003/97
Instead of saving the file in the default format, you can choose to save it in a previous verson of Word, that your friends will have an easier time reading:
1) Click the new round button at the top-left of the Word window.
2) Select “Save As”.
3) In the “Save as Type” drop-down box, change the File Type to “Word 97-2003 (*.doc)”.
4) Click OK.
Almost painless.
Change the Default File Format
If you want a more permanent solution, you can change the default format in which Word saves files:
1) Click the new round button at the top-left of the Word window.
2) Click the “Word Options” button located near the bottom of that menu.
3) Click “save” in the left menu.
4) In the “save files in format” drop down box, select “Word97-2003 Document”.
5) Click the “OK”.
And there you have it. Happy friends.