Bad idea to have both Word X and Word 2004 on same drive?

[Zack]

I've recently purchased and installed Word 2004 on my hard drive.
Previous to doing this, I'd briefly installed Word X as a temporary
work-around to solve some printing problems I was having with Word 5.

I now realize that Word 2004 lacks the ability to save a file in Word 5
format, and am considering whether I should keep Word X on my computer
on the chance that I once again revert back to Word 5 (I assume I can
same a file created in Word 2004, then open it in Word X and 'save as'
a Word 5 document). Are there any possible problems with having these
two versions of Word mounted on the same drive? (Partitioning the drive
is not an option at this point).

And is there really any point in doing this, or can I just rely on Word
2004's ability to 'save as' an RTF file which would be readable by Word
5? I don't do any writing that relies on arcane scientific or language
fonts.

Thanks!
Zack

 

[Elliott Roper]

I've recently purchased and installed Word 2004 on my hard drive.
Previous to doing this, I'd briefly installed Word X as a temporary
work-around to solve some printing problems I was having with Word 5.

I now realize that Word 2004 lacks the ability to save a file in Word 5
format, and am considering whether I should keep Word X on my computer
on the chance that I once again revert back to Word 5 (I assume I can
same a file created in Word 2004, then open it in Word X and 'save as'
a Word 5 document). Are there any possible problems with having these
two versions of Word mounted on the same drive? (Partitioning the drive
is not an option at this point).

It works OK for me. You might get some font conflicts, but a bit of
cunning in the use of the Font Book utility that comes with OS X should
resolve that on sunny days.

And is there really any point in doing this, or can I just rely on Word
2004's ability to 'save as' an RTF file which would be readable by Word
5? I don't do any writing that relies on arcane scientific or language
fonts.

I don't have any experience with going back to Word 5 via that route,
but it sounds OK. Anyhow, leaving Word 5 lying about does not seem to
break anything, so you have the choice.