Upgrading to Word 2000

You can customize Microsoft Office 2000 Setup and the Microsoft Office Converter Pack to install most of the graphics filters and text converters that open and save documents from other applications.

Open a document saved in another file format

To open a file created in another application, click Open (File menu), and then in the Files of type box, click the appropriate file format.

When Word 2000 recognizes the file format of a document, it converts the file, and then opens it. If Word does not recognize the image or text file format, it displays an error message.

To view the list of installed text converters, click Open (File menu), and then in the Files of type box, view the list of text converters.

To view the list of the graphics filters installed, point to Picture (Insert menu), and then in the Files of type box, view the list of filters.

You can customize your Office 2000 Setup to install most of the text converters and graphics filters that your Word 2000 users need. However, you might need to use the Microsoft Office Converter Pack to install additional text converters and graphics filters. If a converter is not available, users must save files in a format that Word 2000 can open.

Toolbox   You can install graphics filters in the Microsoft Office Converter Pack. You can find this downloadable file on the Office 2000 Resource Kit Downloads page.

The following list identifies text file formats that Word 2000 can open:

• HTML

  Converts text to HTML.

• MS-DOS text

  Converts files the same way as Text Only format. Use this format to share documents between Word, and applications that do not run on Microsoft Windows.

• Rich Text Format

  Converts formatting to instructions Word 2000 can read. No formatting is lost in the conversion.

• Text Only

  Converts all section breaks, page breaks, and new-line characters to paragraph marks. Saves text without formatting. Select this format only if the destination application cannot read any other available file formats.

• Text Only with Line Breaks, or MS-DOS Text with Line Breaks

  Converts all line breaks, section breaks, and page breaks to paragraph marks. Saves text without formatting.

• Text with Layout, and MS-DOS Text with Layout

  Converts a document to a text file format while preserving the page layout and line breaks. Inserts spaces in a converted document to approximate indents, tables, line spacing, paragraph spacing, and tab stops. Converts section breaks and page breaks to paragraph marks.

Save a document in a format that other applications can open

To save a document in a format other applications can open, click Save As (File menu), and then in the Save as type box, click the appropriate file format.

If a Word 2000 user wants to save a document in a format for which there is no converter, the user can save the file in one of the following formats:

• Web Page (.htm)

  Saving a document in Web Page format allows a user to reopen the file in Word without losing any formatting or contents.

• Rich Text Format (.rtf)

  Saving a document in RTF preserves text formatting in files.

• Plain text (.txt)

  Saving a document in plain text saves the content of files but not the text formatting.

The advantage of saving presentations in HTML format or RTF is that no formatting or content is lost. The advantage of saving a document in a text file format is that most other applications can open the file.

System Policy Tip   You can use a system policy to define the default value for the Save as type option in the Save As dialog box (File menu). In the System Policy Editor, set the Microsoft Word 2000\Tools | Options\Save\Save Word files as policy. For more information about the System Policy Editor, see Using the System Policy Editor.

Share a document with users who don’t have Word

If Word 2000 users need to share a document with users who do not have a word-processing application, Word 2000 users can save the document in Web Page format (HTML), which allows users to view, print, and edit the document by using a Web browser.

See also

If Word 2000 users share documents with users of other applications, you can change the default format in which Word 2000 saves documents. For more information, see How to Specify the Default Format in Which to Save Files.

Office 2000 includes new and enhanced features for publishing documents on your intranet or the World Wide Web. For more information, see Using HTML and Office Document Formats.