MS Office xp professional compatabilty with MS 2007 issues

[VivaLeBeaver]

Aggghhh.

I have a really old copy of MS Office. When I click on properties on the Word icon is says MS XP Professional so I'm guessing that's the version????

DD has started secondary school and she can log into her school account at home. So she wants to finish off her homework and at home has accessed the documents that she started this morning in the school library. Its MS Ofiice 2007 and is asking for a product key which I don't have.

So the document will open but text is greyed out and I can't do anything with it. I can't save it elsewhere, I can't copy and paste the text.

Am I going to have to bite the bullet and buy MS Office 2007 (or 2010)?

DH reckons the problem is because dd's file is a .docx file.

MS xp Pro can't read them so my computer has opened up the free trial version of 2007 it came with.

I don't really want or need this myself and if I have to pay £85 just so dd can do her homework I'm a bit hacked off.

I've tried converting the docx file to doc but as the file is on the internet rather than saved in my documents I can't browse and find it to convert it. And of course I can't save it in my documents without buying the product key.

Download OpenOffice. It does the same as MS Office, but it is FREE and will solve your problem. Make sure your DD saves her work as a .doc rather than .docx. OpenOffice is awesome!

Have you installed the Microsoft Office compatability pack? This allows you to view documents made in newer versions of Office on older versions.

Here is the linkwww.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=3
If you're not sure about clicking links, just google it.

The compatibility pack worked, you just saved me £85.

Nice, glad its sorted

Thanks Zippey.