Upgrading software to a later version is never an entirely straightforward process and a few glitches can usually be expected.
For example, when I upgraded from Office 97 to Office XP several years ago, I immediately noticed that the heading fonts on my Company Stationery templates had changed in appearance—the font names hadn't actually changed but the appearance of those fonts had.
Fortunately, a bit of 'trial and error' (mainly error) soon found some fonts which looked acceptably-similar to the originals.
Another issue is that the software provider will often 'upgrade' the underlying file structure which renders any new documents unreadable by earlier versions of the application—some sort of one-time conversion is usually available but that tends to render existing documents incompatible with the version of the application that created them.
This particular problem occurs with Office 2007 where the file formats for Word, Excel and Powerpoint have changed—Outlook files are, thankfully, compatible with the previous version (Office 2003) which is still used by many people who see no pressing reason to upgrade until they purchase a new computer.
If an Office 2007 user wants to send files to users of earlier versions, there are two main strategies for dealing with the issue:
- The document may be saved in a format compatible with earlier versions—in Word, for example, you can 'Save As' using the option 'Word 97-2003 document' which will, of course, drop any features specifically associated with versions after Word 97
- The Office 2003 or Office XP user can download and install a Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack using this link—in principle, this software allows Office 2007 files to be opened and edited using the aforementioned earlier Office versions
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