Microsoft Office Word 2007

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mrstayto

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Hi guys,

My uncle bought a laptop recently with Word 2007 on it. Its totally different to the older Word programs that most people are used to. Is there any way of changing the view so it looks more like Word 2003?

He's attending a computer class (complete beginner) and they're being taught on Word 2003 so hes totally confused by the new one.

Failing that, what are the chances that we could send it back to Dell and swop it for the old Word? (I advised him to buy Word at the time, I didn't realize that the new one would be completely different)

Thanks in anticipation!
 
I can't believe someone is teaching such an old version of Word .....it would make more sense to get them to upgrade their teaching materials to the latest version than have a class full trying to downgrade. Once you get used to Word, it's all pretty much the same...

Dell won't be able to change it as they will only load on current versions
 
It may be possible to buy Word 2003 off the net, but Ithere's no guarantee its a legal copy or whether it will work concurrently with your uncle's Word 2007 installation.

Try a search with "Word+2003" in the search criteria.

Is there an option in Word 2007 preferences to preserve the look and feel of older versions of the software?
 
Sounds to me like you have microsoft works too. If it was on the laptop when you purchased it, it is most likely works. A pain if you type something in works and want to print it from another pc with word - possible but annoyimg.
 
I would say that it is definitely Word that the man has, and not Works. Just got Office 2007 myself and it looks completely different to the previous version. I consider myself quite computer literate and I'm having difficulties with Office 2007 myself!
 
Yup, its definitely Word, not Works. He may be being taught on a more recent version than Word 2003, he doesn't know, but he says it has the usual toolbar - File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Tools etc - and not the toolbar thats on Word 2007.

I only used Word 2007 for 5 minutes to see what the problem is and its totally different to the usual word. (It took me most of that time to even figure out where the "save" button was....)

Thanks!
 
Morgause said:
I would say that it is definitely Word that the man has, and not Works. Just got Office 2007 myself and it looks completely different to the previous version. I consider myself quite computer literate and I'm having difficulties with Office 2007 myself!
Click to expand...

Yeah same for me too.

Its definitely Word and not Works.

I have been using Word 2003 daily and when I recently had to format my HDD I could only get Word 2007.

Its so different. I too consider myself very computer literate, and it takes me ages to do anything in the new Word 2007!!

Its not a slight change from 03 - its MASSIVE.

The menu systems are totally alien to anybody who has been using Microsoft software for years. 1st time I used it it took me about 5mins to find the SAVE AS option !!:confused:

And the big pain was when I saved a file and took it to work it would not be recognised. Word 2007 by default saves files in .docx format which Word 2003 doesn't recognise.

You need to go into the menus and set the SAVE default option to Word 2003 - which defeats the purpose of using Word 2007.

But to answer the OP, I don't think it would make sense for MS to allow you to make Word 2007 look like Word 2003 at the press of a button.
 
Just making Word 2007 look like Word 2003 (if that's even possible) may not be enough:
Word 2007 formatting breaks the ability for users to send files to earlier versioned Word users on the Macintosh or Windows (version 2004 on the Mac, 2003 on Windows). Some third-party converters have become available to assist with this, but for most, simply saving Word 2007 files with the 'Save As' command and selecting Word 2003 format creates a compatible file. Office 2008 for the Mac will acquire (restore) the cross-platform capability with the .docx format, but older version users on either platform will remain at a disadvantage.
Click to expand...
 
Yesterday I saved a file in Word 2007 as a 2003 document (ie .doc instead of .docx) and took it to an older PC and it has inserted a couple of blank lines in it which weren't in the original.

So although it does save it in a format that can be read, I am not 100% sure that it will save it EXACTLY as it looks in Word 2007.

I just wonder why MS made the package look SO different. Doesn't make sense.
 
Agreed.

We just got Microsoft Office 2007 and it has taken a bit of getting used to. It's fine now and is really capable of a great deal.

Why Microsoft made it so different, I have no idea!
 
pretty much every laptop/pc you buy now comes with a 90 day free trial of Office 2007 - i've bought dell and toshiba laptops, dell desktops recently and all have this eval version pre-installed....
 
Why have Microsoft done this?

Well it's been said that Microsoft's biggest competitor is... Microsoft itself! They need to keep selling software to make money, but everyone is happy with the software they have. I have no particular desire to update my Word, I don't even know what version it is. It does word processing just fine, and has all the features I need etc.. This is most unfortunate for Microsoft, so they 'encourage' people to upgrade by releasing new versions that are not backwards compatible.

So the short answer is that Microsoft have done this to make money.
 
I just checked mine..im on Word 2000 :eek:...afraid to go anywhere near 2007 now!
 
I recently downloaded open office on my brothers laptop, & am very impressed, I only had a quick look at it but it seems very similar to the traditional word.

www.openoffice.org/

oh - it's free
 
Still on the subject of Microsoft Office Word 2007, I recently used a free trial of the above which has now expired but unfortunately saved a document in Word 2007 and now can't access it in my own version of Word 2003. Is there anyway of reformatting without purchasing Office 2007 or re-typing it.

Thanks.
 
You can download a compatibility pack (google office 2007 compatability pack or similar) from microsoft which will allow you to open docx files in office 2003. Then you can save it as a doc file.
 
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