Before you send a document that was created with an Office 2007 program to someone who’s using a previous version of Office, you can run the Compatibility checker, which is built into Word, Excel, & PowerPoint 2007. It will identify any features or formatting you’ve used that won’t be recognized by older versions of Office. A list of the incompatible content will be displayed, and you’ll be advised that such content may not be fully editable in the previous version. The Compatibility Checker runs automatically when you save a file in the old format. You can also run it manually from the Office Prepare menu. For more information from Microsoft, click here.

Microsoft Office 2007 and 2008 for Mac allow you to save documents in the older formats using a “Compatibility Mode”. For PC users with Office 2007: click on the Microsoft Office Button, select Save As 97-2003 Document, Workbook, or Presentation. For Macintosh users with Office 2008: Select File, Save As 97-2004 Document, Workbook, or Presentation.

The Office 2007 Compatibility Pack allows users of Office XP or Office 2003 to open, edit, save and create files in the new formats. Mac Users with Office 2008 may want to install “Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter” to convert files to use in MS Office 2004 & Mac Office X files. Download the “Office 2007 Compatibility Pack” or “Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac” from the Arts & Sciences Computing website.