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By Walter, January 20, 2007 12:09 am

I recently wrote a new article comparing the various editions of Windows Vista and talking about how to decide which edition is right for you. Check it out at the Windows Vista Community site.

Comments (17)

By Walter, January 13, 2007 11:03 pm

While the new .docx format in Word 2007 promises great things, for now most of the people you’ll be working with are still using Word 2003 or (gasp) an even earlier version. The .doc format remained virtually unchanged in Word 97-2003 and is still supported in Word 2007. But Word 2007 by default saves files as .docx documents, meaning that when you need to share with someone using a previous version you have to open the .docx file you created and save it as a .doc file.

If you work with folks that use previous versions of Word, you can change the default format Word 2007 uses to save a file. To do this, use the following steps:

1. In Word 2007, click the Office button (the big round button at the top left of the Window) and then click Word Options.
2. In the Word Options dialog box, choose the Save category from the list on the left.
3. Use the Save files in this format drop-down menu to choose the format you want Word 2007 to use by default. I use Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc).
4. Click OK.

When you save a new file, if you really want to save it as a .docx file, you can always choose that format from the list in the Save As dialog box.

Microsoft also has an Office Compatibility Pack available for users of Office XP and Office 2003 for opening documents created in Office 2007 (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint)