The Difference between Microsoft Office 2003 vs. Microsoft Office 2007 files?

What is the difference between Microsoft Office 2003 vs. Microsoft Office 2007 files?

This article will give a brief explanation of Microsoft Office 2003 vs. Microsoft Office 2007 files.  The user interface differences will be discussed in another article.

Let’s use Word, Excel and PowerPoint as examples (sorry Outlook, OneNote, etc.)

Microsoft Office 2003 File Extensions

Here are the following file extensions for Microsoft Office 2003 Word, Excel and PowerPoint:

• Word document= .doc            Word templates = .dot
• Excel workbook= .xls             Excel templates = .xlt
• PowerPoint presentation = .ppt    PowerPoint template = .pot

Microsoft Office 2007 File Extensions

Microsoft Office 2007 has the same extensions as Office 2003, with the addition of the letter ‘x’ to distinguish themselves as the Office 2007 XML documents.

• Word document = .docx               Word templates = .dotx
• Excel workbook = .xlsx                Excel templates = .xltx
• PowerPoint presentation = .pptx  PowerPoint template = .potx

This means that Microsoft Office 2007 XML applications can read Office 2003 documents, but Microsoft Office 2003 cannot open or edit Office 2007 documents. It also means there may be problems when different users use the different Microsoft Office packages.

Example:

Computer A has Word 2007. Computer B has not been upgraded, and has Word 2003. Computer A sends B a copy of the Word 2007 document which will not be read by Computer B.

Computer B can send a copy of a Word 2003 file to Computer A which will be read by Computer A, but Computer A must make changes and be sure to send the document back as a Word 97-2003 document to be read by Computer B. The XML format of Microsoft Office 2007 files prevents Microsoft Office 2003 from reading those documents.

Be sure to pay close attention to the Microsoft Office version you are using. Many times I would save and send Office 2007 documents to people with the Microsoft Office 2003 applications who would complain that they could not open the document. Remember, both versions of Word use the term Word document as the file type, with different results if both users are not using the same versions, or same file types.

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Originally posted 2009-09-27 06:00:30. Republished by Blog Post Promoter