FWIW, not being familiar with this area of Mac Word, when I try to open
a Word 2007 document containing a Word 2007 equation (not the older type
of equations) I see a dialog box that says that Word 2007 equations are
not supported in Word 2008, that the equations will be preserved so that
they will be visible if re-opened in Word 2007, but will "display as
placeholders" in Word 2008.
I expected that that might be a single placeholder, perhaps like an
empty picture frame. However, it is a bunch of apparently editable
rubbish as you say.
Options - at least ones that seem just about viable to me - include:
a. if you have access to Word 2007, use that
b. ask your student(s) to create a PDF from their Word 2007 document.
If they have been able to keep their Word 2007 installations up-to-date
they should be able to "Save As" in .docx/.docm format to preserve their
work, then in .pdf format.
c. if you need to annotate their text and return it, either
- work with both the Word document and the .pdf or
- open the .pdf in Preview and use the Annotate button to insert
annotations, or use a suitable version of Adobe's own software to do it.
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk