Office 2007 compatability how-to
If you've purchased a copy of Microsoft's Office 2007, your default format for documents is XML based and will not be compatible with older versions of Office. The doc, xls and ppt formats for saving documents is being phased out for an XML based format that makes for smaller files, faster load times, searchability and collaboration among other Office users.
The docx, xlsx and pptx formats are being well received by new users but those that are not power users are calling their IT staff asking why the person they're sending this file to can't open the Word Document they created. The fix is choosing "97-2003 document" format when you send a file to clients that are running the older version of Office and the adoption of 2007 will continue through mid 2008 so my fix is changing the default save format for Office applications.
In Word, click on the new Office icon on the top corner of the window and at the bottom of the box, click "Word Options". Select the "save" tab and change the default format to "97-2003 Word Document .doc". Follow the same steps for every application that came with your Office suite (excluding Outlook). Keep it this way even if your entire company is using Office 2007 because there will be a day that you email a spreadsheet to someone running Office 2003, xp, 2000 of 97 and they'll reply back with fury and try to avoid calling them a "newb".
