Word X to PC?

[Ken Stone]

I am creating a word processing document in Word X. I need to send it to
someone with Word for Win (I am not sure what OS or Word version). In
the Save As dialog box, I looked for a Word for Windows option but it
wasn't there.

Will my colleague be able to open my doc?

Thanks,
ken

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Ken,

A Word is a Word is a Word ... well, usually. WinWord can read MacWord docs
and vice versa without any conversion. (I'm not positive if this is true
all the way back to the earliest versions of Win Word, but if your colleague
is using any version of Word since at least Word 97, you should be fine.)
However there may be compatibility issues with formatting; for instance,
your version of a font may be different from your colleague's (even though
both have the same name); this could throw the spacing off.

There is one other issue though that has nothing to do with Word; it has to
do with how the attachment is encoded. If you're using Entourage as your
email client, you can easily change the encoding in the attachment box.
Otherwise, you can always "zip" the document (Windows equivalent to
"stuffing"). And be sure to append the three letter .doc file extension.

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>

 

[John McGhie [MVP]]

Beth:

You are correct. EVERY PC version of Word has been able to read its
equivalent version of Mac Word, going back to Word 1 for DOS, which appeared
20 years ago!

However, Word 2001 and Word X for the Mac produce the latest (Word Document
8) format. WinWord versions earlier than Word 97 can't read it. They "can"
download a converter from Microsoft to enable them to open, but not save,
the later format.

Cheers

Hi Ken,

A Word is a Word is a Word ... well, usually. WinWord can read MacWord docs
and vice versa without any conversion. (I'm not positive if this is true
all the way back to the earliest versions of Win Word, but if your colleague
is using any version of Word since at least Word 97, you should be fine.)
However there may be compatibility issues with formatting; for instance,
your version of a font may be different from your colleague's (even though
both have the same name); this could throw the spacing off.

There is one other issue though that has nothing to do with Word; it has to
do with how the attachment is encoded. If you're using Entourage as your
email client, you can easily change the encoding in the attachment box.
Otherwise, you can always "zip" the document (Windows equivalent to
"stuffing"). And be sure to append the three letter .doc file extension.

--
All Spam and attachments blocked by Microsoft Entourage for Mac OS X. Please
post replies to the newsgroup to maintain the thread.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP: Word for Macintosh and Word for Windows
Consultant Technical Writer <[email protected]>
+61 4 1209 1410; Sydney, Australia: GMT + 10 hrs