• If you’re using the newer Office file formats in older versions of Office, the Compatibility Pack is going away in April

    Posted on March 5, 2018 at 11:23 CST by • Comment in the Forums

    As many of you know, Microsoft changed the format of Office documents in Office 2007. The old DOC documents became DOCX, XLS workbooks became XLSX, PPT Powerpoint stacks became PPTX, and various additional file formats (templates and the like) changed.

    The net result was that anybody who wanted to use Office 2003 to open or edit Office 2007 or later documents was up the ol’ creek without a paddle.

    That’s where the Office Compatibility Pack comes into play. There’s a complex description in KB 924074, but the upshot is that Office Compatibility Pack works like a babel fish for Office 2003 and the (free) Word, Excel and PowerPoint viewers.

    Now comes word that Microsoft is discontinuing the Office Compatibility Pack in April. Specifically, the OCP download page now says:

    The Office Compatibility Pack is being retired in April, 2018. At that time, it will no longer be available for download and will no longer receive security updates.

    For most of you that won’t make any difference. But if you’re still running Office 2003 (which is a mighty decent version!), it’d be wise to get the OCP installed now.

    Thx JNP.

    Office News
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