Environment

Microsoft Office/Word 2007 or below

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to provide instructions for opeing .DOCX files or other Office 2007 file formats if using a lower verison of Office (93-2003).

Question

How do I open .DOCX files or other Office 2007 format files from a lower version of Office?

Answer

Office 2007 applications may automatically save to new formats that are not backward compatible with previous versions of Office applications. Microsoft offers a compatibility pack that can help.

Users of the Microsoft Office XP and 2003 programs Word, Excel, or PowerPoint must first install all High-Priority updates from Microsoft Update before downloading the Compatibility Pack.

Install the Compatibility Pack with Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, to open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.  Use the Compatibility Pack in conjunction with Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats.  For more information about the Compatibility Pack, see Knowledge Base article 924074.

Note: If you use Microsoft Word 2000 or Microsoft Word 2002 to read or write documents containing complex scripts, please see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925451 for information to enable users of Word.

Update History

06/3/2015 – Updated formatting and information
07/28/2010 – Article Created