Compatibility in Word 2007 - Part III

In my last post about Compatibility in Word 2007 I talked about Compatibility Mode and how you get into Compatibility Mode in Word 2007. In today's post I am going to talk about getting out of Compatibility Mode. Going back to the first post on Compatibility in Word 2007, I am referring to the top and right side of the diagram.

While in Compatibility Mode in Word 2007 there will be a number of features affected, either by being disabled or by offering the Word 2003 version of the feature. This mode leaves you with one question:

How do I enable all of the Word 2007 features?

Getting out of Compatibility Mode

There are two ways you can accomplish this goal:

1. Save As one of the new Office Open XML Formats
2. Using the Convert command located on the Office Button menu

You can view a video about these two methods here.

These two methods accomplish the same goal, but differ in the number of resulting files. The first method is saving a document that is in Compatibility Mode as one of the new Office Open XML Formats. As mentioned in the previous post about Compatibility Mode, when saving as one of the Office Open XML Formats there will be a checkbox in the Save As dialog that allows you to get out of Compatibility Mode. By default the checkbox "Maintain compatibility with Word 97-2003" is unchecked, meaning that the document will automatically be taken out of Compatibility Mode when saved.

Doing a Save As operation will result in two files: the original and the Office Open XML file that is in Full Functionality Mode.

The second method of getting out of Compatibility Mode is using the Convert command. This command provides a brand new concept to Office. It allows you to convert a document that is in Compatibility Mode to an Office Open XML Format that is in Full Functionality Mode. That is, you start with one document and end with one document. For example, let's say you open a document foo.doc in Word 2007. This document will result in Word being in Compatibility Mode. Using the Convert command

Word will take foo.doc and create foo.docx.

Convert command will result in different Office Open XML Formats depending on the original document. Macro-enabled Compatibility Mode documents will result in macro-enabled Office Open XML Formats upon using the Convert command. Similarly, non macro-enabled Compatibility Mode documents will result in non macro-enabled Office Open XML Formats. Also, if the original document is a template then Convert will result in either a .dotx or .dotm extension depending on whether the original document has macros or not.

Advantages of getting out of Compatibility Mode

There are several advantages of getting out of Compatibility Mode:

1. You will have access to all the Word 2007 features that are disabled
   1. For example: equations will be enabled
2. You will have access to more options for images
   1. Note the set of Picture Tools available in Compatibility Mode:

   

3. Note the lager set of Picture Tools available in Full Functionality Mode:

• You will have access to the Word 2007 version of features
  1. For example: SmartArt and Charts
• Certain features in your document will go through the process of feature refresh (I will talk more about feature refresh in my next post)
  1. For example: Equations will be converted from pictures in Compatibility Mode back into equations in Full Functionality Mode

Note: Getting a document out of Compatibility Mode may result in layout changing. If layout of your document is important, continue to work in Compatibility Mode.

Next Time

In my next post, I will talk about Compatibility in Word 2007 as a collaboration scenario. That is, getting into and out of Compatibility Mode and the concept of feature refresh.

Let me know if you have any specific questions or comments that you would like me to address here or in future posts.

Zeyad Rajabi