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Are you going to be ready for Office 2007? What about your Mac friends? (Updated)

by Tris Hussey on December 5th, 2006

For the moment at least, the door is closing on MS Office being a universal office app program.  For years you’ve been able to send your Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files to Mac users as they are and know they would be able to open, edit, and save them just fine.  Okay sometimes Mac users forget Windows folks need the suffix, but that’s no big deal.  With the launch of Office 2007, that all has changed.  The default file format is the new XML-based one that there isn’t a translator for on the Mac.  Office 2003 users on Windows will be able to download a translator pack, but Mac users are left out in the cold.

So what are you going to do?  Stick with older versions of Office until the translators are out?  Remember to save as an older version of Office?  Of the two, the stick with the old version seems the easiest (not to mention cheapest) route.  Yes, I like Office 2007.  Yes, I have a copy.  I’ve installed it on one of my machines here at home.  But this brings out a bigger question.  How do you handle Mac-PC issues?

Frankly I haven’t given it much thought in years.  Yeah I used to be a die-hard Mac guy, but not anymore (I wouldn’t call myself a die-hard Windows guy though).

For most business users, it isn’t going to be a huge deal.  Most businesses run on PCs, but you deal with a lot of Mac users.  Designers, artists, layout, print prep.  These are still Mac dominated areas.

Me?  Well, I’m going to be making the move to Office 2007 pretty soon (one more beta to come out and I’m there).  I will, though, be saving in Office 2003 format for a while I’m sure.

How about you?

Update:  The folks at Mac Mojo (the Office Mac team blog) have posted that the Mac translators for Office 2007 will be coming soon and will be free.  In fact according to the post the translators are being worked on now.  Good show!

Hat tip to Global Nerdy.  See also CrunchGear.

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POSTED IN: MS Office

1 opinion for Are you going to be ready for Office 2007? What about your Mac friends? (Updated)

  • Tom Hodgers
    Dec 6, 2020 at 6:04 am

    Anybody have any news about the release of the new translator pack for Office XP and 2003?

    The old pack only works with files generated by the beta version of Office 2007 and gives an “update your pack” error message if one tries to open an .mdoc file generated e.g. by MindManager.

    Cheers,

    Tom

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