IT Professionals

Install The Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack For Word, Excel And Powerpoint 2007

Posted by on Jun 26, 2007 | 4 Comments

If you buy a new computer these days that has software pre-installed, you will likely be getting a version of Microsoft Office 2007. The problem is if you save files using one of the new Office 2007 file formats, users with previous version of Office will not be able to open the files – unless they install the Compatibility Pack.

The Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack is designed for Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP and Office 2003. Once you install it, you can open files saved in the new Office 2007 file formats, using your older version of Office.

The Compatibility Pack is supported by the following operating systems:

  • Windows XP Service Pack 1
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows Server 2000 Service Pack 4

The Compatibility Pack is recommended for the following applications:

  • Word 2000 with SP3, Excel 2000 with SP3, PowerPoint 2000 with SP3
  • Word 2002 with SP3, Excel 2002 with SP3, PowerPoint 2002 with SP3
  • Word 2003 with SP1 or later, Excel 2003 with SP1 or later, and PowerPoint 2003 with SP1 or later
  • Word Viewer 2003
  • Excel Viewer 2003
  • PowerPoint Viewer 2003

To download the Compatibility Program, navigate here and click the Download button.

The Security Warning dialog box appears prompting you to save the file to your hard disk. Once the download is complete, locate and double click the file called FileFormatConverters.exe. A wizard walks you through the installation process.

Once the installation is complete, you will be able to open any files saved in Office 2007.

[tags]office compatibility, word, excel, powerpoint, microsoft office[/tags]

  • Doug

    The first thing I did after installing Office 2007, was turn OFF the new file formats. I CAN save my files in the new formats, but by default my copy of Office saves everthing as a plain old office XP/2K formated file. So I don’t need the compatibility pack. And if anyone sends me one of the messed up Microsoft formatted documents, I will send it back and have THEM reformat it into an usable format. (Even though I can open it on my laptop, where I installed Office 2K7.

  • Louis

    Is there anything like this for Mac OS X? I was so thankful when I found out about the Compatibility Pack because I was finally going to be able to open the new word docs. But now I can’t find anything that allows the Mac version of Microsoft Office (2004) to open the files. Very irritating.

  • http://www.thefoxmedia.com Ronnie Roper

    I was having the same issue. Did some searching and found a converter for Office 2004 and above for OS X on the Mactopia website. Worked great. Use the link below to download it.

    http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx?pid=download&location=/mac/download/Office2004/ConverterBeta_0_2.xml&secid=4&ssid=36&flgnosysreq=True
    Hope it works great for you.
    _Ronnie
    _Fox Media

  • Paul

    The link posted by Ronnie appears to be an XML converter rather than the Office Compatibility Pack for OSX. If anybody knows where I can get it, please let me know. Thanks!