Old school here - updating MS Office 97 to 2007

[GladioliBuckets]

And about time I think... Anyway, is it as easy as it seems? Is there anything to watch out for?
Thanks for any tips.

Depends on whether you need to share documents created with 2007 with other people.

If they don't have 2007/2010 Office, then they might get initially confused about files like somedoc.docx (not .doc )

I feel sure someone suggested making .doc the default for saving their documents in this situation, but I tend only to use MS Office on clients' PCs via LogMeIn (in a support situation, to see what their problem is) and don't have it myself (use OpenOffice for free).

You may need to spend a bit of time getting used to where everything is on the menus (sorry 'ribbons')

The only thing I really hate about it is that you can't group images unless you put them in a drawing canvas, it's annoying and fiddly and a backward step from previous versions.

If you want to send docx docs to someone with pre-2007 you can also send them a link to MS's File Format converter which will read them.

Oh and to save you a panic, you need to remember that if you open a dialogue box to open or save a 'Word Document' in 2007, you won't see any of your pre-2007 documents listed. They are still there, but to see them in the list you need to change the filetype to All Files.

That last bit is one worth remembering - I assume that Word will be looking for .docx and thus doesn't show the old .doc files...

I will have to search past threads - felt sure someone had suggested a way to make .doc the default when saving (if not for the OP, for a few of my clients who may have a mix of machines, not all on latest versions of MS Office).

To make .doc the default for saving:

Click on what's known as the "pizza" button - the big one at top left.

At the bottom of the small screen that pops up, click on "Word Options", then "Save", and you can choose what format to save files in.

It's a long time since I switched to 2007, and I still get a bit confused at times.

It's worth looking around at the various options available through "Word Options" as a lot of those are ones originally accessed from the 97 toolbar.

One of those is "Customize" where you can add specific commands to the "Quick Access Toolbar". Those appear as tiny icons at the very top of the screen.

One thing that does trip me up from time to time is that there are two tabs (Design and Layout) for tables that don't appear on the toolbar until after you've inserted a table into the document.

Great tips thanks. Need to upgrade because I'll be getting some stuff sent from a Mac that's allegedly in a compatible format (I forget what that software is called though).

I'd recommend you go straight to Office 2010 - if you have bought Office 2007 recently it should be a free upgrade.