Detect Publisher Version?

[MarcB]

Publisher 2002 and 2003 open a Publisher 2007 document without warning you
that it was created in a different version of Publisher. Opening a Publisher
document like this causes various problems such as text reflow. Is there any
way to tell which version of Publisher the document was created in? I tried
opening the Publisher file in Notepad and Word to read the document header.
Both Publisher 2002 and 2007 identify their documents as "Microsoft Publisher
3.0" when opened this way. There must be some way to detect the version. Any
suggestions?

 

[Mary Sauer]

If you open the folder with your Publisher documents and select detailed display
you can see when the publication was last modified. This will give you a clue to
the version that was used to create the publication.

 

[MarcB]

Mary,

Thanks for your reply, but that's not going to work for me. I can create a
Publisher document in 2003 today and it will have today's time stamp, but it
was still created in Publisher 2003, or 2002. The date modified has nothing
to do with it.

I actually created a series of small files in three versions of Publisher:
2002, 2003 and 2007. Then I opened the files in Notepad and searched for
version information. All three documents had the same internal version:
"Microsoft Publisher 3.0". There was nothing in the file that I could find
that would distinguish between one version and another. And in fact, you can
open a file created in 2007 in 2002 and 2003. It's just that if you try to
use 2002 or 2003 as a production tool for commercial printing for a file
created in 2007 you are going to encounter many problems. It would be nice if
Microsoft implemented a warning if you try to open a file created in another
version. In commercial printing, it's usually best to stage a job using the
software that created the file. This is why I want to know how to determine
the version in the first place. I'm still trying to figure it out.

--
Marc Belanger
IT Manager
Print Pelican

If you open the folder with your Publisher documents and select detailed display
you can see when the publication was last modified. This will give you a clue to
the version that was used to create the publication.

 

[Mary Sauer]

Having Publisher versions going back to the early nineties does help me to know
when a file was modified. When I do properties in Windows Explorer on a
Publisher document and it says it was modified in 1998, I can be sure it wasn't
created with Publisher 2000 and beyond.

Publisher 2002, 03 and 07 are not much different. Publisher 2002 was the first
version to use the new WordArt and the Clip Organizer. There has been some
cosmetic differences and a few new features in 03 and 07. The catalog merge
wasn't part of 2002. I don't see formatting differences when 07 opens a 2002
document.

--
Mary Sauer MSFT MVP
http://office.microsoft.com/

Mary,

Thanks for your reply, but that's not going to work for me. I can create a
Publisher document in 2003 today and it will have today's time stamp, but it
was still created in Publisher 2003, or 2002. The date modified has nothing
to do with it.

I actually created a series of small files in three versions of Publisher:
2002, 2003 and 2007. Then I opened the files in Notepad and searched for
version information. All three documents had the same internal version:
"Microsoft Publisher 3.0". There was nothing in the file that I could find
that would distinguish between one version and another. And in fact, you can
open a file created in 2007 in 2002 and 2003. It's just that if you try to
use 2002 or 2003 as a production tool for commercial printing for a file
created in 2007 you are going to encounter many problems. It would be nice if
Microsoft implemented a warning if you try to open a file created in another
version. In commercial printing, it's usually best to stage a job using the
software that created the file. This is why I want to know how to determine
the version in the first place. I'm still trying to figure it out.

 

[MarcB]

We are not using it the same way. We receive files from suppliers and we have
no way of ascertaining the version. The date modified would work for you,
because you know your own history and workflow. But we are in the dark about
that with customer-supplied files.

The differences we are seeing are in output. We write PostScript from
Publisher and then convert it to PDF; or we use the Adobe PDF plug-in to
generate PDF. We're not having a good time doing this with Publisher 2007
files in other versions. Works much better using Publisher 2007 though.

 

[michael adams]

We are not using it the same way. We receive files from suppliers and we have
no way of ascertaining the version. The date modified would work for you,
because you know your own history and workflow. But we are in the dark about
that with customer-supplied files.

Assuming that there are in fact, no internal clues.

Simple question first. Can't you simply ask the supplier ?

Other than that I suspect you already know the answer,

If you're running a business then you need charge the customer
for any time and trouble that their using unspecified, out of
date versions is causing you.

Get hold of a number of different versions of Publisher, start
with a best guess for each job and keep generating PDF's in
successive versions until you get one without any problems. And
then charge the customer accordingly for as many as it takes.
But take care to explain this possibilty to them beforehand.

Unless they're providing you with lots of other work besides, then
if they don't like it, then let them go crying to your competitors
and let them have the headaches. Such jobs may even end up costing
them money - but then some people would rather be busy but losing
money than turning business away.


michael adams

....