criminal practices

[fpb]

They probably haven't waited for me to say this, but the fact that Microsoft has made the most recent version of Word incompatible from earlier ones (as I understand it) is really criminal. Moving a document from one computer to another risks wrecking it, and adding hours of dreary work and proofreading to what you had expected to have to do. And all to force us to buy the most recent version. Creeps!

Comments

[filialucis]

Word being incompatible with itself is actually nothing new. Back when Word 6 was the current version, I saw at least one document that had been written (in English) in an Italian-language copy of Word and that came out with all the accents mangled if you opened it in a German or English copy.

As somebody said, you aren't obliged to save files in .docx format on Word 2007 or 2010, you can select the old .doc format in the dropdown list or even save as .rtf, but you can also download and install (for free) the Compatibility Pack in your version of Office to be able to open .docx in Word 2002.

Alternatively -- assuming you don't absolutely have to use certain macros or plugins that won't run in anything except Word -- you might consider using Open Office. Easy to install, free, compatible (it'll open .docx without batting an eye, I just checked), and you can even download Latin spellcheck tools from their add-ins site, whereas MS Office doesn't even know that Latin exists as a language. I need VBA for my work so I'm stuck using Microsoft Word, but I'm transitioning all my private stuff and my spreadsheets to Open Office because I like the interface much better than the new MS Office layout.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

I agree completely with the recommendation of Open Office, which opens any Word file and will save as any Word file to boot.

Also, Word 2007 is the devil.