Sunday, September 16, 2007

Office 2007

Hi Everyone,


Many of you may have students with Office 2007, while you only have Office 2003. If that is the case you may also be having problems opening and reading Office 2007 files. From Phyllis Dobson:

I don't know if you've heard this before but Office '07 files are downloading with a zip extension. Any file created and saved with .docx or .xlsx extensions do not automatically open in Vista (like the Office '03 files did) and when downloaded, are defaulted to a .zip extension. This is not zipping the files, just throwing that extension on the file. Thus we can't open it in Office '07 programs.

I've figured out three work arounds: This might be useful for faculty to know:
  • For faculty/students with Office '07 on their computer, just change that .zip extension to the .docx or .xlxs (whichever) when on the Save/download screen. The file type can stay as Winzip because there is no other choice.
  • Faculty can download the Compatibility patch:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101686761033.aspx

  • Have Office '07 students save in the '03 format.

And an update from David Chatham on when this may be corrected in BB Vista:


I am told by Bb that they have a fix coming out sometime in October. I don't know when we would apply this as I don't have any information on how long it would take. The change will not be ready in time to catch the September 22 upgrade.


best,

Lisa

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