Quote:
Originally Posted by calvin-c
As for really, really need it-IMO people only have 4 choices. 1) delete any documents you receive from friends/co-workers that are in Office 2007 format. 2) Buy Office 2007 yourself. (I suppose you *could* steal/pirate it, but I refuse to recommend that.) 3) Send them back & ask that they convert them to the older format for you. And 4) install the compatibility pack.
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It's an open standard, that leaves everything open to implement (except for some binary proprietary parts from very old versions of Office). Which OO took advantage at very first opportunity, so by now compatibility with the new format is much higher than with the old one.
Plus, Google Docs have support of importing them.
Plus you have OOXML SDK from MS, that can be used to read, edit and write documents in new format.
Plus, new format is based on XML, so you can easily modify them by using your favorite archiver and basic text/xml editor.
So, actually, this new format is much more open and user-friendly, which is a huge step forward.