Office 2003 documents readable by Office 2002 applications?

[Captain Infinity]

There's the possibility that some of the Windows XP machines in my
company will have their Office XP (2002) suites upgraded to Office 2003
Professional. Problem is that we still have a few Win 98 machines in
use, which will have to stay with Office 2002.

I know that 2003 will be able to read 2002 documents with no problems,
but will the 2003 users need to save their new documents in a special
format for the 2002 users to read them? Of will the 2003 defaults work
for the 2002 users with no special hoops to jump through?

Basically I'd like for the users of the new 2003 suite to just be able
to save their file as a straight .doc or .xls without having to worry if
the 2002 users will be able to open them. If there is a need to save as
a special format can 2003 be tweaked to make this format the default
"save as" format?

Thanks in advance for any help.


**
Captain Infinity

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

We've never had any problems using documents created by Word 2002 and 2003
interchangeably across the two platforms. You can specify the default Save
format for Word 2003, but it lumps Word 97 through 2003 together. You can
also tell Word to disable features introduced after a specific version--but
the latest version for which this is available is Word 97.

For the most part, you will encounter few (if any) problems passing Word
documents across different versions of Word.

If you were to use a Word 2003-only feature (and, I can't swear that there
*are* any Word 2003-only document features), then that particular nuance
would be lost when you open/save the document using Word 2002.

Someone else will have to tell you about Excel.

 

[Clif Holland]

You have to buy two upgrades. Each is good for only one machine.

--

Clif Holland, KA5IPF
www.avvid.com

 

[Miss Perspicacia Tick]

You have to buy two upgrades. Each is good for only one machine.

What's that got to do with the OP's question. Oh and you're wrong, by the
way...

1) OEM licences are tied to the systems they were first installed on

2) Retail licences may be installed on one desktop and one laptop
provided that they are for the exclusive use of the primary licencee and
aren't in use simultaneously.

3) Office 2003 STE may be installed on up to three computers of any type.
This *only* applies to Office 2003 - previous Students and Teachers licences
were one per system.

 

[Captain Infinity]

We've never had any problems using documents created by Word 2002 and 2003
interchangeably across the two platforms.

That sounds good.

You can specify the default Save
format for Word 2003, but it lumps Word 97 through 2003 together.

Not quite sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that a .doc saved
by Word 2003 in (I assume) "97-2002 (*.doc)" format would be readable by
all three programs?.

You can
also tell Word to disable features introduced after a specific version--but
the latest version for which this is available is Word 97.

This sounds good too. We left 97 a long time ago, though there are
still a few 97 docs floating around in our server's archives.

For the most part, you will encounter few (if any) problems passing Word
documents across different versions of Word.

Great. My main interest is in being able to save a .doc in Word 2003's
native, default format ("Word Document", at the top of the Save As file
type list) and still be able to open it with Word XP.

If you were to use a Word 2003-only feature (and, I can't swear that there
*are* any Word 2003-only document features), then that particular nuance
would be lost when you open/save the document using Word 2002.

Someone else will have to tell you about Excel.

Thanks for your help!


**
Captain Infinity

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Basically, yes. But, later features (such as floating tables, which I think
were introduced in Word 2000), are lost in earlier versions. The document's
contents, however, come through fine.

MS seldom makes drastic changes to Word document formats. The last time any
major changes were made the might cause compatibility problem were with the
introduction of Word 97. Mixed Word 2002 and Word 2003 offices, in my
experience, encounter no problems at all (except, of course, when folks with
Word 2002 start to envy those with 2003... but, that's a different kind of
problem).