A couple of my students have asked why TurnItIn.com won’t accept their documents. Their files were written in the brand-new Microsoft Word 2007.
Students who use Office 2007 are going to encounter problems whenever they share files with students who use older software packages. As part of Office 2007, Microsoft has deployed new document formats based upon XML. In Word, this new 2007 file format has the extension .docx
TurnItIn.com has not updated their submission page to accept Word 2007 documents. One of two things is happening when TurnItIn.com receives a docx file. The site may be rejecting files when it sees the docx extension. This is an example of data validation, a task that computers perform to check hand-entered data. If you’ve miskeyed a postal address or telephone number into a web form, and received an error message, you’ve encountered data validation.
It seems more likely that TurnItIn.com’s server-based system simply can’t read the new XML format that Microsoft has used in docx files.
TurnItIn.com can easily fix this problem when they write and test a new docx filter. Because TurnItIn.com is an application service provider (ASP), it’s easy to deploy this change. TurnItIn.com doesn’t have to compile and release software for personal computers.
I’m not brave enough to try Word 2007 yet. I usually wait until Microsoft releases Service Pack 1 before I’ll try a new software version. I’ve heard reports from colleagues and friends that Word 2007 breaks macros, templates and documents that worked just fine in Word 2003.
The quick fix for Windows users is to use File, Save As and choose the Word 2003 DOC format. Upload that new DOC file to TurnItIn.com and all is well.
TurnItIn.com will also accept RTF and PDF documents.
File, Save As does have an RTF file type choice. RTF is an file format that Microsoft used in early versions of Micorsoft Word. For a simple document without graphics or macros, it should work well enough.
There are several free programs like CutePDF Writer that will allow Windows users to save documents directly to PDF format. I’ve used that program for years. Sometimes I get better results with CutePDF Writer than I do with Acrobat Professional.
Mac users can save any printable file to PDF format by opening the application’s Print dialog, pressing the PDF button in the lower left corner of the dialog box, and choosing Save as PDF…
Pingback: billso.com / About e-commerce 3: Non-repudiation and saving receipts as PDFs
Pingback: billso.com / TurnItIn.com supports Word 2007