How to Open Word, Excel, PowerPoint 2007 Files in Older Office Versions

Have you got a Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint 2007 file which you cannot open in your older version of Microsoft Office 2000, Office 2003 or Office XP? Its important to be aware that your important Powerpoint presentation or Word  document might not open in older versions of Microsoft Office. Here is the fix.

Microsoft Office 2007 Compatibility Pack

I always carry the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats on my usb pen drive and it really comes in handy for quick installation, when a critical presentation or document fails to open in an outdated Microsoft Office version on an outdated older computer.

Download the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack (27.5 MB) which will let you open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.

After installing the Compatibility Pack, you can easily use Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, to open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. This will also work with Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats. Remember to install all High-Priority updates from Microsoft Update before downloading the Compatibility Pack.

Now whenever I open an Office 2007 document on my Office 2003, I get this alert, and although some styling is lost, at least the document opens.

Why new Office 2007 programs dont’t open in older versions?
Microsoft has added new Office Open XML Formats to Microsoft Office Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007 and Word 2007. The new formats help by improving file and data management, reducing file sizes, and improving recovery of damaged files. Office XML Formats uses a ZIP compression technology to store documents.