Is there a universal file savings format?

[Walter R.]

I am upgrading to Win 7. Therefore I am looking for the "best" word
processing program, such as MS Word 2002 (which I am currently using), or MS
Word 2007, or Open Office.

Word 2002 is very fast and works fine. It saves files as .doc .

I played with Word 2007 and found it very bewildering and totally different
from Word 2002 (More eye candy). It saves files as docx.

I have not tried Open Office but I understand it saves files in a different
format yet: .sxw

Why did MS break with the ancient .doc suffix and why did they invent
..docx, which is not readable by anyone except the few owners of Word 2007? I
try to make my files readable by as many people as possible. Which system
is readable by the largest number of people?

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Walter
www.rationality.net
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[JoAnn Paules]

There is no "best" or "unoversal" formats. For now, most people can read a
..doc file and many can read the .docx. You can save a document as a .doc
format in Word 2007.

What I've been doing is determining the format by what is going to happen to
the file. If it's for my use alone (or all but my use alone), then I save it
as .docx. If it's going to others and I have no idea whether they are
running Word 2007 or are using the compatibility pack, then I save it as a
..doc file.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Word 2002 can open docx (a compressed XML format) with the aid of the Office
2007 compatibility pack.

Why did Microsoft choose XML for Word 2007? Progress! However Word 2007 can
handle Word 97-2003 DOC format without problem.

If you are happy with Word 2002 then Office 2007 and Open Office are answers
to problems you don't have. Install 2002.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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