Maybe you're the first person in your workgroup to get the 2007 Office system. Or perhaps you work with some departments who need to use Office documents saved in an earlier format. You can still share documents with each other. Here's how.

You can open a file created in previous versions of Office, from 95 through 2003. Just open the file as usual. After working with it in the 2007 version, you may want to save the file. By default, the Save As dialog box saves a file created in a previous version as that same version. As you save, a Compatibility Checker will let you know of any new features added to the file that may be disabled, or matched as closely as possible.

Note    If you open a presentation created in PowerPoint 95, PowerPoint will default to the 2007 format when you save it. But you can choose to save the file in the 97-2003 format.

If you want to save the file in the 2007 format, select Word Document, Excel Workbook, or PowerPoint Presentation in the Save as type box.

Colleagues who have Word, Excel, or PowerPoint versions 2000 through 2003 (and the latest patches and service packs) can open 2007 files. When they click on your document, they will be asked if they want to download a converter that will let them open your document.

You can learn more about the new file format in individual courses about Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007. The links to these courses are in the Quick Reference Card.