Share Your Work, Other Office Formats

Share Your Work in Other Office Formats

When you’re sharing an electronic copy of your work, such as via email attachment, there’s a problem if your recipient doesn’t have the same application in which to view it. For example, if you send a PowerPoint presentation to a friend who doesn’t have PowerPoint, he won’t be able to open it. There are some ways around this. For example, your recipient can go to the , search for Viewer, and download a free viewer application for that file type. Viewers for Excel, Word and PowerPoint are available there. Alternatively, as I mention earlier, you can copy and paste the content of the document directly into the body of an email message, rather than sending it as an attachment.

Tip

Even though previous versions of Office don’t support the new formats in Office 2007 and 2010, users of older versions of Office (2003 and lower) can download a free compatibility pack for Office 2007 and 2010 that enables them to open the newer files. Go to the and search for compatibility pack. Another workaround is for you to save your work in another format that your intended recipient has an application for. You do this via the Save As dialog box, by selecting a different file type. For example, the Rich Text Format (.rtf) is a near-universal format that almost any word processing program can open, and Word users commonly save in that format when they want to exchange documents with someone who uses a very old or obscure word processing program that doesn’t support Word files.

Warning

Changing to a different file format can result in the loss of some formatting. Some features in Office 2007/2010 applications work only when documents are saved in the native Office 2007/2010 format, such as fill-in fields, macros, certain types of editable artwork and formatting themes. That’s why most people don’t save in other formats unless it is necessary. Next:
Perhaps a better way, though, is to create a version of your work in a special format designed for read-only sharing of laid-out pages: a page description language. That way, the recipient sees the page exactly as you intended it, without having to find and download a separate viewer for that specific file type. Office 2010 supports two major page description languages: PDF: A format created by Adobe, widely used all over the Internet for distributing documents. It doesn’t come with Windows, but a reader for this format — Adobe Reader — is free to download from . Yes, the recipient does still have to download Reader, but it’s just one program, and it will work for the content from all Office apps, plus many other documents. XPS: A format created by Microsoft, supported natively in Windows Vista and higher. Anyone who has Windows Vista or Windows 7 already has this viewer available. You can save in PDF or XPS format directly from within an application. Follow these steps: 1. Choose File-->Save As. 2. From the Save as Type list, choose either PDF or XPS Document. The dialog box changes to show some additional controls. 3. (Optional) Change the filename if desired. By default, it’s the same name as the data file you’re working with. 4. Make an Optimize For selection. For documents that might also be printed on paper, choose Standard (the default). For documents that will be shared only online, choose Minimum Size. 5. Click Save. The saved file opens in its native program, which is either Adobe Reader (PDF format) or the XPS Viewer or Internet Explorer (XPS format).

Tip

Instead of following Steps 1-2, you can choose File-->Save & Send-->Create PDF/XPS Document. Next:
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