Options for opening new Word documents with old software

Here’s a question I received from one of my readers. I thought everyone could benefit from my reply so I’m including the full question and answer below.

Q: When I tried to open a Word document attachment, a pop up said it was created from a newer version of Microsoft Word and that I needed to install a compatibility pack.

When I clicked through to see what was involved to do that, it came up that it would be a big deal with a number of preliminary steps so I decided it wasn’t worth the effort and risk. Did I do the right thing?

A: You can either go back and stumble your way through the compatibility pack installation for free or upgrade to Office 2007. You can get away with the Home & Student version for around $90 – $120 (price fluctuates frequently). But you may need to spend another $80 to get the newest version of Outlook 2007 as well.

Keep in mind that Microsoft is releasing the next version of Office in 2010 so, even if you upgrade to Office 2007, you will only have the most current version for a few months to a year.

So you can spend just under $200 to be current (for now) with your Office software, or install a compatibility pack for free.

I didn’t mention this but you also have another option. You could send an email reply to the person who sent you the Word 2007 attachment and ask him or her to re-save the document in a more compatible Word 2003 format. Then you would be able to open the attachment with no modifications to your computer.