On February 21, I wrote about Microsoft Office 2007. At that time, TurnItIn.com was not accepting the new Word 2007 file format, .docx, so I told Office 2007 users to save their files in either .doc format or as a .pdf file.
I just noticed that TurnItIn.com has fixed this issue. Office 2007 users can submit files to TurnItIn.com without major problems. It’s easy to fix a web-based service, after all.
Microsoft Office 2003 users can install a compatibility pack that lets their suite open and print Office 2007 files.
I still haven’t seen an Office 2007 compatibility pack for Microsoft Office 2004 on the Mac.
For Windows users who just want to view and print Visio 2007 or PowerPoint 2007 files, Microsoft’s Office 2007 viewers for Visio and PowerPoint will do the job.
The Office 2007 file formats are explained in gory detail here.
I haven’t touched Office 2007 yet. The familiar menus and toolbars have been replaced with something called the Ribbon, which is NOT a part of Office 2008, the Mac version of Microsoft’s venerable suite. At least Mac users will still have menus!
We’ll see if users take the time to upgrade from Office 2003/2004 to Microsoft Office 2007/2008.
I have more hope for Google Docs at this point, even if these web-based apps aren’t as powerful as Microsoft Office and the file sizes are limited.
At least I can open Google Docs in Firefox and share them with my Googling colleagues.
Tags: Apple, Microsoft, office
