Word 2000 Vs. Word 2003

[Brandon K]

One of my clients recent upgraded a few of their word processing staff to
Office 2003 while the rest remain on Office 2000. I got the follow message
from them:

*********
* We were assured that Word 2000 and 2003 documents are totally
compatible so we made corrections using Word 2003 on a document that had
been edited/created in Word 2000.
* The document was saved in Word 2003 and the corrected version
was sent back to the originator with all changes made and outline
numbering and bullets intact.
* The corrected document was also PDF'd using Adobe 6.0 and the
PDF copy was sent to the originator

Result:

* Upon opening the Word 2003 document, the recipient found outline
numbering and bullets missing throughout the text (bullets that were
manually inserted remained intact but the automatically generated lost
integrity.).
* When we opened up both versions of the document (2000 and 2003),
numbering appeared intact and the bullets in the latter part of the
document were missing.
**********************

Has anyone else come across any similar? Is this a know compatibilty
problem between Word 2000 & Word 2003? The majority of docs that they word
on are 300-500 page technical docs, with graphics and tables. Is Word even
the right product for them, or should I entertain the idea of Framemaker?

 

[Margaret Aldis]

Hi Brandon

There are some "under the surface" differences in bullets and numbering
between 2000 and 2002/2003, changes to revision marking, and a number of
other new "features" that do affect compatibility. However, bullets applied
from the toolbar rather than via styles may disappear in any version. For
further information see

http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/sharing/WillMyFormatChange.html

and also the FAQs on bullets and numbering on the same site.

Word can certainly handle 300-500 page technical documents, but you really
must use templates and styles to control the formatting - it's no good
working as you might on letters and ephemeral reports. Because these
documents usually have a long life with many versions and editors, it's also
important to establish and support (with customizations) standard ways of
editing and building the documents - if everyone does their own thing you'll
tie the documents in knots.

As far as choosing a tool for tech docs is concerned, there are of course
many different criteria to consider - not just "features" or personal
familiarity. One of the main reasons for choosing Word may simply be its
ubiquity, especially where non-experts need to edit the documents, though
that can lead to problems of its own. On the other hand, if you have a
dedicated tech doc department, and especially if you need flexible page
layout and typesetting quality, or structured document editing, then
FrameMaker might well be a good choice.