For cross-platform compatibility, I would do exactly as you have done: use
the .docx format as your default.
The overwhelming majority of PCs were updated to be able to read this format
over the past year. Microsoft pushed out these converters on Office update
about 12 months ago. You struck one user who wasn't updated.
There are PC users out there who do not do their updates, and if you run
into one, it's a matter of luck whether you get ANYTHING to work on their
machines. Not only the converter is missing, but potentially large slices
of Word itself are out of date
You can try sending this user .doc format. You will lose some data saving
to .doc. Mainly the new graphics objects, possibly nothing you use. The
old format won't support all the new artefacts that Word 2008 can create.
But for most users: Send them .docx, it's the one that will do the best job.
And if you are sending by email ‹ it's a quarter the size of .doc
I
would certainly run with .docx as your default save format on your local
machine. Not only does it occupy a lot less disk space, it is also more
reliable, less likely to corrupt.
Hope this helps
HELP: I upgraded to the new office 2008 for mac with the hope that the mac
version will now be more compatible with PC versions -- but my client had to
spend an hour downloading some patches to even open the thing. When I checked
the online help, it appeared that the default format (.docx) would be best to
use -- but this isn't working. Can you offer guidance on properly saving for
cross-compatibility??
--
Don't wait for your answer, click here:
http://www.word.mvps.org/
Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:
[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia
