Welcome to the start of the new academic year! With it begins many new things, not the least of which is Microsoft Office 2007. The latest release of Microsoft's flagship office suite for Windows brings not only new features but issues of concern as well, especially for Macintosh users.
We (ISR) have made the conscious decision not to upgrade the campus Windows computers to Microsoft Office 2007 at this juncture. Some of the program changes, especially with the interface, are significant. We will be planning a more gradual migration for faculty and staff throughout the academic year and into next summer. Currently all faculty, staff, classroom, and lab computers are running Office 2003 for Windows (and Office 2004 for Macintosh) as they have for quite some time.
A challenge is presented, however, as students return to campus having recently purchased the 2007 version of the product for Windows. This includes many first-year students. While they may grow accustomed to the new interface and features, the file format of the new version is not compatible with Office 2003 or Office 2004 for Macintosh. So a person running Word 2003/2004 would not easily be able to open a document created by someone using Word 2007.
You can identify Office 2007 documents by their four-character file extensions that have the letter "x" at the end. Using Microsoft Word as an example, instead of the document having the traditional ".doc" extension, a Word 2007 document for Windows would have ".docx" at the end of the filename.
There are solutions available that address this issue that we would like to share with you.
First, if you are working with students that are using Office 2007, please ask them to save documents they create in "Office 97-2003" format. That will ensure the document he or she creates will be compatible with older versions of Microsoft Office. This is currently the best compatibility option for Macintosh users.
The second solution is one we (ISR) have been proactively implementing. There is a Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack the may be installed on Windows computers running Microsoft Office 2003 that will enable them to open Office 2007 documents. We have actively "pushed" this pack to computers on campus throughout the summer and continue to do so through the campus network. Our goal is to make the compatibility issue between the two Windows versions of Microsoft Office transparent while working on your Bucknell-owned Windows machine.
We anticipate a similar compatibility pack will become available for the Macintosh in the near future and will keep you informed as we continue to test and implement viable solutions.
If you happen to have a Windows personal computer or a Windows computer that is not joined to the campus network, you may easily download this compatibility patch from Microsoft by visiting:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en
As always, if you have questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact Tech Support at techdesk@bucknell.edu or by calling x7-7777.
