Rating: 5
Version tested: 3.0 (11/19/2007)
Office 2007 Compatibility Pack from Microsoft is a free extension for MS Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003 that enables users of those versions of Office to open, edit, and save files using the new file formats used by Office 2007. The Compatibility Pack can also be used in conjunction with the Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats.
If you use an older version of Office (e.g. Office 2003) and work with someone who uses Office 2007 (or vice versa) then you’ve probably already noticed that documents saved with the new Office 2007 extensions (.xlsx/.xlsm, .docx/.docm, and .pptx/.pptm) do not open with older versions of Office. Most people work around this issue by working with documents in Office 2007 in "compatibility mode" and making sure to save their documents using the old extensions (.xls, .doc, .ppt) which Office 2007 can do easily.
Although the solution above can work, wouldn’t be ideal if you could simply install a converter on your current, older version of Office that simply allowed it to open the new extensions? This, in fact is what the "MS Office 2007 Compatibility Pack" does. Here are some notes on this program:
- How it works: this program will convert the document you are opening from the new Office 2007 formats to a format that your version of Office can work with, and then convert it back to the Office 2007 format when you save. Aside from the dialogs that show up when the conversions occur (see screenshot), the end effect is a seamless experience of working with the new file extensions.
- Are there any compatibility issues?: yes. Although the Compatibility Pack should open 90%+ of Office 2007 documents without hitch, attempting to open some Office 2007 documents might not be entirely successful if the document uses some of the newer functionality specific to Office 2007, and the compatibility pack will display a warning message to inform you. For example, I attempted to open an Excel .xlsm document that utilized rows beyond the 65,536 rows supported by Office 2003, and the compatibility pack simply truncated all the extra rows that Excel 2003 could not handle (Excel 2007 can handle just over a million rows). Although a better solution is probably just not possible, this is obviously less than ideal, especially if the user works with the converted document without understanding the warning prompts and without being fully aware that the document was degraded in the conversion process.
- Works with Office 2003 document viewers: you can download these from Microsoft. I haven’t personally tested these.
- Uninstallation: should you want to uninstall the compatibility pack, you can do it easily using Add/Remove programs.
The verdict: the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack works really well and is probably fantastic news to the ears of millions of MS Office users in workplaces all over the world.
Compatibility: Windows machines running MS Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003.
Go to the download page to get the latest version (approx 28 megs). Does not require Windows Genuine authentication/validation for download.
i have to say is the best antivirus i install on my computer keep my computer...
I don’t believe this allows you to open Onenote 2007 files in Onenote 2003.
[...]anda boleh menggunakan Microsoft Office 2007 Compatibility Pack bagi membuka fail dari Office 2007 menggunakan Office 2003[...]
no it doesnt handle OneNote that’s true.
I’m glad to see this post though, even companies or users that have no interest in buying Office 2007 should install the compatibility pack so that inbound 2007 files can be edited by the user.
It’s an excellent concept – don’t require people to upgrade to use the new format but try to enable the capabilities they have bought, only downgrading an element where there is no equivalent representation in an older version.
It does work with the free viewers too by the way.
cheers
Please send me a compatibility soft ware for m.s.office 2007.
We have installs of XP with English Office 2003, and then MUI packs installed for various languages including Far East. The Compatability pack corrupts documents in some languages. Any ideas?
i need Ms.office pack
this is very helpful to update thank u
this is very helpful realy to update thank u
I going to use it in firsrt time so i am not in such a postion to remark on it.
Thank you.
I am working in Office excel 2000, trying to read Office excel 2007 .xlsm files. I already downloaded the proper compatibility pack. all other updates for Office 2000 are already done. I still can not read the xlsm. If I try through “My Computer”, it tries to convert through the new converter, but says “can not save converted file”. If I try through Excel, it does not even load. The wizard comes up, but still
can not convert to anything legible.
Any ideas.
thanks
rich
Follow up:
I successfully downloaded the Pack and it works fine on an identical PC. The only difference between the two PC’c is software. On the one where the compatibility pack did not work, I have Scanning software for an HP ScanJet 8250 loaded.
Are you aware of any conflict with that software and the compatibility Pack.
Thanks
Rich
We have a XP system that had Office 2007 installed. This was uninstalled and Office 2003 was installed (we didn’t want to go back either). Now when I try to install the Office compatiblity pack, it fails instantly, does not seem to check anything. Any Ideas?
i am having set of xlsx and pptx files, need to convert those to xls and ppt. but the command line is not doing any help.
for the the xlsx i tried
c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12>excelcnv -oice c:\xl.xlsx c:\xl.xls
it gives out a xl.xls but its just the copy of my input xlsx file when i open that file in the office 2000 it gives error. i just renamed the xl.xls to xl.zip, now i can see the xmls inside. so it just created the copy of my input file and renamed it to xl.xls.
Any help on this highly appreciated.
Thanks
No luck with the converter.
I’m on XP Home with Word/Office 2003. It will only read the .docx files as .zip and will not convert.
I’ve uninstalled/reinstalled three times. I’ve also reapired/reinstalled Word – still no luck.
Thanks if you can help.
It doesn’t seem seamless with .PPTX files under Windows 7. I had no issues under Vista, but now I am unable to open a pptx with Powerpoint 2003. It just says “This action is only valid for products that are installed”.
Microsoft! With all those resources and they still blow.
I WANT THIS
I’m still downloading and have not seen its usefulness. I am waiting. Hope it suits my purpose.
Thanks.
In deed a very useful software, thank u mate
thannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnks