Automatically Save Documents In Office 2007 Compatible With Office 2003

One of the biggest problems I have seen with office 2007 is the new office 2007 .XML format. when people receive documents created in this new format and they are using an older office suite like office 2003 they need to download a compatibility pack  Microsoft made available for people using old office suites to convert .XML documents to old formats. .XML files are normally saved with an X at the end, for example a word document has .DOCX format . as many of you probably already realized this compatibility pack does not work that great, and sometimes does not convert documents the way you want to. and of course the frustration start to rise. if all your clients and coworkers use office 2007, using the .XML format probably is not a big issue, but if your clients and some of your coworkers still use older office suites, then you might have a lot of troubles.

We made a terrible mistake at the organization I work for. many users started receiving documents in the new  office 2007 format from clients and other external people, when they asked us about our implementation of office 2007 we told them it would be at the beginning of 2009, but at the meantime we would install the compatibility pack for them to convert .XML documents to old format. pretty soon some of them started complaining about the compatibility pack not able to convert some features on the new format , then our techies started to install office 2007 instances on those people that complained without waiting for an official implementation plan, well, that became a mess when users within the same organization exchange documents in different formats. to prevent the chaos from getting worst until we implemented a good rollout plan for office 2007 we came up with the solution of automatically saving documents in the old format on the people already using office 2007. the process of saving documents in friendly 2003 format is simple using the save us command on office 2007, and does not require any configuration, but dealing with corporate users is not that easy, so we needed to make office to automatically save files on the old format regardless of what option the user chose;the save or save us command.

Make office 2007 automatically save files on 97/2003 format.

To make office 2007 save documents on the 97/2003 format regardless of want command you choose Save or Save Us; from any office application click on the office logo on the top left corner:

then, in the case of Microsoft Word, click on Word Options.

when the word option menu comes up, click on Save on the left panel. on the Save files in this format drop down menu, choose Word 97-2003 document (*.doc)

click on OK and that should make Microsoft Word 2007 save document files on the .doc format regardless of what option you choose. you can do the same for all other office applications.