2007 and 2003. I know I must upgrade soon. I'm scared. ;)

[Mona Carol]

I'm a powerpoint professional, and make my living, primarily, designing
and implimenting powerpoint presenations for a large variety of client
types. I need to stay up to date, so I know I am going to have to
upgrade to 2007 soon to stay with the times.

I guess what I'm looking for is some reassurance that if I do upgrade,
that I am not going to have trouble servicing my clients who have not
upgraded from 2003 yet. I know that the compatibility issues are
getting better...

Has anyone had success installing 2007 side by side with 2003?

I'm just worried that I will ultimately have to turn down work if I do
this upgrade...

Someone reassure me!

Thanks!

Mona Carol-Kaufman
http://www.heresmona.com

 

[Echo S]

I would get Virtual PC (free download from Microsoft) and install one of the
versions (probably 2003, to tell the truth) on that.

 

[Ute Simon]

I'm a powerpoint professional, and make my living, primarily, designing

and implimenting powerpoint presenations for a large variety of client
types. I need to stay up to date, so I know I am going to have to upgrade
to 2007 soon to stay with the times.

I guess what I'm looking for is some reassurance that if I do upgrade,
that I am not going to have trouble servicing my clients who have not
upgraded from 2003 yet. I know that the compatibility issues are getting
better...

Has anyone had success installing 2007 side by side with 2003?

I'm just worried that I will ultimately have to turn down work if I do
this upgrade...

Hi Mona,

I can fully understand your concerns. My job ís that of an IT trainer and I
will, too, have to work with both versions in the near future. Because my
computer has a large hard drive, I chose to divide it up into three
partition: One for Vista + Office 2007, the second for Windows XP + Office
2003 and the third for data. And it works well now during the last 10
months. Using this configuration, I have to spend some extra minutes to
change between the two versions, but I do not experience any conflicts. And
I can have both versions of Outlook, which does not work, if you install
them side by side.

Especially if you are not only designing presentations, but also templates,
you will need both versions. Because the concept of masters, templates, and
themes has changed a lot, I would not design a template for PPT 2003 with
the version 2007 and vice versa.

But I am sure you will love the new features of PowerPoint 2007, in my
opinion they make the presentations look more sophisticated. Take your time
to get used to the new version, it normally takes two weeks until you feel
at home with the new user interface.

Best regards,
Ute

 

[Manisha_Chillibreeze]

I have been working with both 2003 and 2007 (installed on the same system
running XP Pro) over the past 6 months and I have not experienced any
problems. The only issue though are the effects - any effects created with
2007 will show up as an image in 2003, there by increasing the file size by
quite a bit.

 

[Tom Conrad]

Ute,

If I understand your partitioning strategem, you have two bootable
partitions and a data drive, accessible to each bootable operating system. Is
this correct?
I am also assuming that you have set Office on each bootable partition (BP)
to save to the data, so that regardless of which BP is running you can reach
the files, i.e., O-2007 can reach files created by O-2003, and vice versa.

Have you experienced step-up or step-down issues between Office versions?
If a 2003 file is edited by 2007 does it create issues, if at a later date
the file is re-edited by 2003?

 

[Ute Simon]

Hi Tom,

If I understand your partitioning strategem, you have two bootable
partitions and a data drive, accessible to each bootable operating system.
Is
this correct?
I am also assuming that you have set Office on each bootable partition
(BP)
to save to the data, so that regardless of which BP is running you can
reach
the files, i.e., O-2007 can reach files created by O-2003, and vice versa.

Yes to both.

Have you experienced step-up or step-down issues between Office versions?
If a 2003 file is edited by 2007 does it create issues, if at a later date
the file is re-edited by 2003?

Don't touch masters or templates, which you created in one version, in the
other version! Objects created with the new effects in 2007 are not editable
when opened in PPT 2003.

Anything else did not show major problems. You can add text or forms to
presentations created in the other version. Move or delete slides, print
them. With the compatibility pack on the 2003 partition, of course.

Until now, it works well for me.

Best regards,
Ute

 

[Mona Carol]

Thank you all for all of your opinions. Still trying to weigh my
options, but at least things are a lot clearer in my head.

Thanks!

Mona

 

[samuel]

Hi,

Now that you have both versions installed on your machine (i.e. same OS), I
was wondering if the installation has caused any limitations. Can you run
both versions simultaneously? Did the installation require any special
tasks? Do the apps run flawlessly or do you perceive more instability with
the dual installation? Any other concerns we should be aware of? Thanks in
advance.

-- Samuel

 

[Martin Conradi]

We've been running 2003 and 2007 side by side on the same systems (no
partitions, no nothing) and had few problems apart from those mentioned (new
to 2007 effects can't be editied in 2003).
The biggest headache has been charts. Charts originated in 2003 can be
editied in 2007 and the format will hold profided you use the 'edit
existing'. Don't use 'Convert'. Charts created in 2007 loose all their
formatting if opened in 2003 - unless you create the charts with Microsoft
Graph Chart via Insert / Object. - see the discussion above.

Martin