Creating Documents in Office 2007 to be Read By Users Of Older Office Versions

I'm writing this while watching a beautiful sunrise over the surf. The door is open and I can hear the rollers coming in. Ocean front rooms are cheap in South Carolina at this time of year. Temps are forecast in the 80's for the rest of the week. I sure hope the sleet and snow has melted when we get back on Monday.

I've been reading a bit re Office 2007. Office 2007 by default will save it's documents (when you tell it to save) in a format that cannot be read by older versions of office unless the owner of that older version does two things:

1. Has run "Office Update" (something similar to "Windows Update") to get all the latest updates from Microsoft.
2. Has downloaded software from Microsoft intended to enable them to read the new Office 2007 files

What this means is you could create a new Powerpoint presentation or Word document, send it to them as an attachment to an eMail and they would not be able to open the document on their machine.

Here is a link to an article on Microsoft's web site that explains the above in more detail

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924074

The solution in the Microsoft article (see link above) is to have the receiver of your document take some action. There is also something you can do when you save the document that will assure you they will be able to read it: you can do a "save as" and save it in the older format. Here is a link to an article on the Binghampton University web site that tells you how to do that:

http://wiki.binghamton.edu/index.php/Using_Word_2007_%22sharing_documents_with_other_users_and_computers%22

Hope this Helps!

Denville Library Presentation De-Bugging and Tuning Up Your Computer

I will be giving my "De-Gunking Your Computer" presentation tonight (Wed, 3/14/2007) at 7:00 at the Denville NJ public library. After doing this presentation at the Randolph library I posted it on Slideshare where it has been viewed, to my amazement, over 400 times. I updated and made some additions to the Randolph presentation and have re-posted it (separately) for Denville. Note that there are many hyperlinks in the presentation that lead you to supporting information on the web. You can spot them by moving the mouse cursor around the screen to see if it changes shape. Most of the links are on words, some of them are on images. You can get to the Denville version of the presentation by clicking the following link:

http://www.slideshare.net/JimWhite/debugging-and-tuning-up-your-pc

Note: when you click on the above link you will go to a site called Slideshare and will see the first page of the presentation in a reduced size. To the bottom right of this first slide you will see the word "full". If you click on "full" a full screen window will open with the presentation in it. The four arrows at the bottom of the screen allow you to navigate. Their function, from left to right is:
1. go to first slide
2. go to next slide
3. go to previous slide
4. go to last slide

Note that on the initial screen (the one that shows a small size slide) directly below the slide (scroll down) there is a place to leave comments. Please do so.

I hope you find the presentation useful. Enjoy!

Vista Is Here

Whoa, it's been a long time since my last post! Chalk that up to a lot of commotion in my life since then. Specifically, we sold our house and moved to a townhouse. At the same time we continue to make plans (we now have a signed contract) to build in Myrtle Beach. While it only takes two sentences to say that, to live it is a different matter altogether. At any rate, things are getting a little back to normal.

Microsoft's new operating system, Vista is here and available. If you already have a computer and are considering an upgrade, don't. Wait until Microsoft issues it's first massive set of fixes (referred to as a "fix pack"). Wait a month after that to make sure the fixes don't need fixes and then consider an upgrade but only if you are doing so to take advantage of some specific Vista capability. Don't upgrade for the sake of upgrading, it's not worth the aggravation you face with any operating system upgrade. If you are buying a new computer and it comes with Vista preloaded, beware of the "minimum system requirements" your system supplier will provide. As a rule of thumb, you should seriously consider doubling the system memory recommended.