Accessing MS Office 2007 files in MS Office 2000 / XP / 2003

MS Office 2007 comes up with new file extensions for Word (*.docx), Excel (*.xlsx) and Powerpoint (*.pptx). By default these extensions are not backward compatible with earlier MS Office 2000 / XP / 2003. Hence files with these new extensions cannot be opened using MS Office 2000 / XP / 2003.

As time progresses, you could find that people are moving towards MS Office 2007 as hence it is high time that a fix should be made to open those new extension files in your old MS Office.


The solution to this problem is Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. With this pack you can can view, edit and save files in these new Office formats in earlier MS Office 2000 / XP / 2003 versions.

This compatibility pack is a separate program and hence can be uninstalled at any point of time just in case you intend to move to MS Office 2007.

You can download Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack from this link
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en

In case if this link goes dead, you can google for "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack" and download it.