Luckily Word 2007 includes a feature that lets you save a document to be compatible with Word 97-2003.
How to save a document to be combatable with Word 97-2003?
If you want to save a document to be compatible to open in word 97-2003 you cannot simply automatically save the document because it will save as a .docx. Therefore you cannot click on the disk icon at the top to save your document.
- Go to the
at the top left corner.
- Choose Save As. Another menu will appear.
- Choose Word 97-2003 Document from the list.
- Choose where to save your file.
Is there any way to open a Word 2003 document in Word 2007?
Yes you can but you must download a compatibility pack from Microsoft. This will enable you to open Word 2007, PowerPoint 2007, and more in your Office 2003 program. You can also download the free Open office program. It will open .docx files already. See more details in the freeware section.
Go to the Microsoft website to download Word viewer
And you will also need Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats
Notes on saving a Word 2007 document to be compatible with a Word 97-2003:
- If you open a word 97-2003 document in word 2007 and then save it, it will save in the same format as the original file. However if you want to change the file to .docx then you must use save as to save the document.
- Just remember that the majority of user still have Word 2003 on their computers so it is very handy to be able to make a word 2007 document compatible for this.