Converting Microsoft Office files for Compatibility

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A lot of documents get shared or transmitted online, often by email. Sometimes, these are Microsoft Word or Excel documents. A pricelist in Excel, for instance, maybe attached to an email sent to you.

Ordinarily, reading such document would be a matter of downloading it and opening with the Excel or Word program in your PC. After all, most of us use the MS Office Suite.

Now, that may not be so simple. You may find, when you have downloaded that file, that it comes with a .docx extension, if a Word document, or .xlsx, if Excel spreadsheet. You may also find that you are unable to open the document in the Word or Excel program is your PC. Why so?

Well, if you run on Office 2003 or earlier, you will face such challenge with documents prepared in Office 2007. Office 2007 has the default extension .docx for Word documents and .xlsx for Excel documents. The earlier versions save Word and Excel documents as .doc and .xls, respectively. So, a compatibility problem arises. If you’re not on Office 2007 and receive a document done with Office 2007, you will have difficulty opening it, because your software will not recognize it. The reverse is also true!

Work-around to Open Your Word or Excel Document with Different Extension

The way to access your document is by converting the file. Fortunately, Microsoft has provided a compatibility pack - the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats - which you can download and use. Simply open the document in it and save it with the appropriate extension.

It is advisable, though, to ensure you run on genuine Microsoft software before going to download resources at their site. Just some advice. Anyway, there’s every opportunity to get and use genuine software these days and you really can’t justify not doing so.

Well, if for any reason, you are not able to download that pack form the Microsoft site, all hope is not lost. Here is another quick option for file conversion: www.zamzar.com. This is an online file conversion service and you can use it for free. It’s also fast.

Simply browse to zamzar.com, use the conversion wizard which has just four quick steps and immediately receive a link, by email, to your converted document.

How to Use the Zamzar File Converter

First, save the file you received in any folder on your PC. Go to zamzar.com. Follow the wizard. First browse to your folder and upload the file you want to convert. Next, select the file format you want to convert to (say, .xls). Input your email address in box provided, to receive your link to the converted file. Check your mailbox straight away for the message. Click the provided link to access the download page. Download your documents in the right format, which you can now open and use.