By now you've probably heard, "I finished my paper at home but it won't open at school!" or "I can't print it!". Because Microsoft did not create a backwards compatible document file system you cannot open files created with Office 2007 with any of the older versions of Office without performing an extra step.
First read this list of what happens when you convert the file from Microsoft Office's update site. If you still have some editing affected by one of these features you may want to continue using Office 2007. If you just want to view and print, read below.
The best way is to remember to change the document type in Office 2007 so it ends in .doc instead of .docx. You can change the document type manually in the Save or Save As dialog, or via your Preferences: Tools -> Options -> Save tab -> Default format -> change to "Word Document (*.doc)" instead of "Word 2007 Document (*.docx)"
The next easiest way allows you to view and print .docx files:
"In case you just want to view a docx file, there is a simpler way: rename the extension of file from .docx to .zip then extract the contents. Docx is basically a set of xml files. When you unzip the file, you get a folder named Word and inside that you can see a file named document.xml. To view the contents of the document, open document.xml."
The following was inspired by an article titled 5 Ways to Open a Docx file from ToThePC.com that succinctly summarized what took me a few minutes of web searching to find how to open a student's homework file at the last minute of course :) I took the liberty of adding my own thoughts and re-arranging the order of the original list in my preferred order.
- Convert files for free online: Initially I used Zamzar to convert a student's file: you browse to your file, select the format you want to convert to, and go for it! Anther options is docx-converter, of course a web search will find many more...
Pros: no additional software on your computers
Cons: not a good idea for sensitive or high security documents - Software specifically for converting files: this software does one job and does it right: drag your .docx file to the drop area and it's automatically converted and saved to the same location as the original file
Pros: a small application that does one thing and does it right
Cons: more software on our computers? even though it's really small - Free software that opens any document: To open .docx files in Open Office you'll need to install the Open XML Translator.
Pros: You should have OpenOffice available for users anyway because it can open almost any document type and you can encourage students to use it at home since it's free.
Cons: OO uses a lot of memory so if you're a heavy application user be ware. - Download more software from Microsoft: Microsoft provides what's called a compatibility pack that updates your current installation of Office to open .docx documents. The original one I downloaded was completely standalone and didn't require installing all other updates before installing it, but I can't find that online. The Mac version of the compatibility pack is called the Open XML File Format Converter.
Pros: Installing allows users to independently complete their work instead of making your workstation special; integrates seamlessly with Office
Cons: If you have an older computer you should check your hard drive's memory to ensure you have space for all the updates you may not have installed in the past
In addition, why should we continue to financially support an inefficient system? Instead of using good software design principles and making the new file format backwards compatible and thus easier for end-users, they are forcing consumers to jump through all kinds of hoops and load more memory hogging updates on our computers. Now off my high horse, it is the most easily integrated option: once the compatibility pack is installed you can open any .docx file any time without any converting.
(Sources: ToThePC.com, LifeRocks 2.0)
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