Tag: excel

Open XML Compatibility Pack

June 24, 2009 by Jason

Downloads of the Open XML Compatibility Pack have passed the 100 million mark, Microsoft revealed. The Redmond-based company is offering the Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats for users of Office releases prior to Office 2007 in order to enable them to not only open, but also edit, and even save documents, workbooks, and presentations in Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007 file formats, namely the Open XML ISO standards. The software giant indicated that the number of Open XML Compatibility Pack downloads was illustrative of the increase in adoption of the OOXML standards introduced with the advent of the Office 2007 System.

“The compatibility pack is a manual download. It is not pushed through any update channels. In order for an end user to obtain it, they must visit the Microsoft download center, select one of the 35 available languages, and download the 26MB installer. To say it differently, more than 100 million people have had cause to seek out and download the compatibility pack for Open XML; likely due to their encountering a document stored in one of the formats,” explained Gray Knowlton, Microsoft Office Group Product Manager. Read More»

Stick with standard Office file formats

June 18, 2009 by Jason

You can minimize file-compatibility issues by standardizing on the most common file formats. By default, OpenOffice.org saves files in Open Document Format (ODF). Microsoft’s by-the-book support for ODF, unfortunately, breaks some spreadsheet files, according to a recent ZDNet blog post.

OpenOffice reads and writes Office 2007’s default .docx and .xlsx XML file formats. But the older .doc and .xls formats are still the ones most often used. I suggest that you make the classic Office formats your defaults in OpenOffice. To set .doc as the document default, for example, open any OpenOffice program and do the following:

Step 1. Choose Tools, Options;

Step 2. Select General under Load/Save;

Step 3. Click Text Document under Document type in the Default file format and ODF settings section; Read More»

How to change the default file format Office 2007

October 27, 2008 by Jason

Office 2007’s applications save their files in a new format called OpenXML. Earlier versions of Microsoft Office do not recognize the OpenXML format, although they can be upgraded with the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack to support the OpenXML format.

Many people who purchase new computers or upgrade to Office 2007 do not realize documents created in Office 2007 will not work in older versions of Microsoft Office. Many times people who receive their documents cannot open them.

This guide shows you how to set Microsoft Office 2007 applications default file format to an older format supported by Microsoft Office 97-2003.

Change the Default File Format

In this example, I am going to change Word 2007’s default file format used when saving documents from .docx to .doc (the file format used by Office 97-2003). This can also be done in Excel 2007 and Power Point 2007. Read More»

Word 2003 classic menu layout to Word 2007

September 14, 2008 by Jason

I have been using office 2007 for sometime now and become quite used to the know how, features and tools location in Microsoft Word 2007.

With Office 2007 released the old classic menu layout which includes File | Edit | View and so on is replaced by the new web 2.0 tabbed ribbon interface which includes Home | Insert | Page Layout and so on.

But, I have seen lot of people wasting so much time to actually locate different features like Format ,Tool and Table etc which appears simply in the old classic word 2003 menu layout.

Let’s see how can you restore the old classic word 2003 menu layout in word 2007.

There is a small program called MS Word 2007 Ribbon to Old Classic Menu Toolbar Interface Software 7.0 which lets you apply the old classic menu layout in word 2007. Read More»

June reliability update for Vista SP1

June 29, 2008 by Jason

An update is available that will help improve the performance and reliability of Windows Vista SP1.

This update includes the following improvements on a Windows Vista SP1-based computer:

1. The stability of Windows Vista SP1-based computers by addressing some crashes that may occur when you try to check e-mail by using a POP3 e-mail client such as Windows Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird.

2. The reliability of the Windows Vista SP1 based-computers by addressing some problems that occur when you delete user accounts by using the User Accounts item in Control Panel. When this problem occurs, the system may stop responding (hang). Read More»

Create A Batch File To Open Multiple Programs At Once

May 09, 2008 by Jason

Ever have the need to open more than one program or application at the same time?

Say it’s the beginning of the month and time to pay those dreaded bills. You know you need Excel, Windows calculator and Firefox or Internet Explorer open. Instead of opening them up one by one, you can easily create a batch file that will open all three programs at once.

And while your at it, why not have Excel open the spreadsheet file you use for tracking your budget and the browser open to your Bank’s home page. Here’s how to do it…

First let’s take a look at a batch file I created that will just open Excel, Calculator and Firefox: Read More»

Office Labs Offers Search Commands

April 29, 2008 by Jason

Microsoft is hard at work searching for ways to improve its Office System. This is why the company has introduced a quasi-independent effort dubbed Office Labs. Designed to be a sandbox set up to streamline the experimenting, building and testing of new ideas, Microsoft Office Labs will offer the first taste of new products and features while still in the most early stages of development, even as prototypes. An illustrative example in this regard is Search Commands for the Office 2007 System.

“Search Commands helps you find commands, options, wizards, and galleries in Microsoft Office 2007 Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Just type what you’re looking for in your own words and click the command you need. Search Commands also includes Guided Help, which acts as a tour guide for specific tasks,” reveals the product’s description. Read More»

Can Loonies Speed Up Your PC?

February 29, 2008 by Jason

I tend to be wary of programs that purport to make computers go faster, fix problems and so on. The vast majority of them are worthless snake oil. I’m also a bit suspicious of Russian software – they’ve still got a reputation for dodgy programs and scams and anything that comes from a company called Loonies is bound to set the alarm bells ringing so Actual Booster doesn’t get off to a very promising start.

Nevertheless, after giving it a fairly thorough road test I can tell you that Actual Booster really does liven things up a bit. It’s also free, and as far as I can see there’s no iffy content and it doesn’t try to phone home. Read More»

Excel Is Back with a Vengeance

January 17, 2008 by Jason

Microsoft has confirmed that the Office suite is once again under fire at the beginning of 2008. However, it seems that attacks only target the Excel component in a variety of Office versions. Concomitantly with revealing that a Critical, Zero-Day vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild, the Redmond company provided assurance that users of the latest versions of the Office System are not at any risk from attack. Office Excel 2007, Excel 2008 for Mac, Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 3 as well as users that have installed Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment (MOICE) are not affected by the vulnerability.

A member of the Microsoft Security Response Center revealed that: “a targeted attack exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft Office Excel. Our investigation has shown that this vulnerability affects Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2002, Microsoft Office Excel 2000 and Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac. Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and Microsoft Excel 2008 for Mac are not affected as they do not contain the vulnerable code.” Read More»

Staying Compatible With Word

July 02, 2007 by Jason

Now that Microsoft Office 2007 is out in the wild users of older versions of Office and Word may encounter problems opening Word, Excel and PowerPoint files from Office 2007 users. The new suite introduces new file formats, called Open XML. Frankly it’s a nuisance but there is a solution so if you are having trouble and you need to download the Office 2007 Read More»