MS Office 97: Sharing Files with Previous Versions

Article
02/20/2014

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For the latest information, see https://www.microsoft.com/office/

Today Microsoft Office applications are used by more than 40 million people around the world, and over 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies use Microsoft Office. Because the use of Microsoft Office is so widespread, it is important that individuals responsible for implementing and supporting Office 97 have well thought out strategies for upgrading. This document is designed to help administrators and support professionals understand the issues with sharing files between multiple versions of Microsoft Office. It describes the various migration tools built-in to Office 97, conversion utilities, work-arounds and support materials. (Please see links to related information at the end of this document).

Supporting multiple versions of Microsoft Office

The file formats for Microsoft Office 97 have changed due to new functionality found in each application. For example, features such as Shared Workbooks in Microsoft Excel, Table Drawing in Word, and Custom Shows in PowerPoint required changes to the file formats. However, Microsoft understands that most companies cannot upgrade to Office 97 overnight. For this reason, support and Helpdesk personnel may face issues with running multiple versions of Microsoft Office during the migration.

In a mixed environment of Microsoft Office versions, users quickly become aware of the issues with sharing files. For example, Office 97 users may not want to give up the new features by saving documents into older formats. Similarly, Helpdesk administrators may not want to invest the time and resources necessary to install converters for the older versions. But ultimately, users of various versions of the software need to share files and work together to get their work done. So what can be done to solve this problem? Microsoft spent considerable time anticipating these issues and provides several solutions such as Default Save As, installable file converters, file viewers, dual file formats and batch file converters. Each of these options is described below.

Default Save

Users of Word, Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint can save their documents as previous version file formats or even in the formats of competitive products. To make this process even easier, Office 97 provides users with the new Default Save feature to automatically save files in a specified version. Through the Tools/Options Dialog box in each application, users can select a previous file format, say Microsoft Word 6.0/95, as the default format to save all files.

Another way to set the Default Save format is for administrators to use System Policies (shown in the illustration below) in Windows® 95 or Windows NT® Workstation 4.0 and the System Policy Templates included with the Microsoft Office 97 Resource Kit. With System Policies, the administrator can define settings on the end user desktop by changing a file on the server. In addition, these settings are implemented every time the user logs onto the network. Therefore, if the end user makes a change to a setting, that change is automatically overwritten with the administrator's policy the next time the user logs on to the network. In addition, administrators can customize a message to display when users try to save files in a format other than the default. If necessary, this setting can be overridden for users of Office 97 that aren't sharing files with users of previous versions. Once all users have been upgraded to Office 97, administrators can use System Policies again to enable users to save in the native Office 97 file formats. For additional information, please see the Using System Policies to Administer Office 97 Whitepaper on https://www.microsoft.com/office/migration/.

System Policies Editor helps set the Default Save As file format in Word 97

If you cannot implement System Policies because they are not supported on your network or because you have a large number of Windows NT Workstation 3.51 users, there is another alternative. The Network Installation Wizard, which is used to customize Office 97 Setup, can be used to add Windows registry settings keys that will set the Default Save As file format at the end of Setup. The benefit of this method is that it is part of Setup, so it doesn't require touching the desktop a second time, and it will work in any network infrastructure. The disadvantage of this method is that it is a one-time setting. If the user changes this setting, there is no automatic way of re-setting it to the organization standard.

Network Installation Wizard helps set the Default Save As file formats

Installable File Converters for Microsoft Office 97 Documents

The second option for viewing an Office 97 file is to open that file directly in the previous application, using a file converter. For example, a Word 6.0 or 95 user can use an installable file converter to open a Word 97 document, but not save in the Word 97 format. Note that not all Word 97 features will be converted, as described later in this document.

The freely distributable Word 97 converter for Word 6.0 and Word 95 users is included with Microsoft Office 97, Word 97 and is also available on https://www.microsoft.com/word/. This functionality will be available for PowerPoint 4.0 and 95, in Q2 1997. Previous versions of Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access do not provide support for installable file converters. However, both applications provide other mechanisms for users to share files, as discussed later.

File Viewers

Third, Microsoft provides file viewers that enable users who do not have Microsoft Office to view and print Office 97 documents. Microsoft will release 32-bit Windows Viewers for Word (Q1 1997), Microsoft Excel (Q2 1997), and PowerPoint (Q2 1997). Microsoft will also release a 16-bit Windows Viewer for Word 97 in Q2 1997. The Viewers will be available for free on https://www.microsoft.com/officefreestuff/. For additional information on file Viewers, see the Office 97 File Converters/Viewers Matrix on the Office 97 Migration Web at https://www.microsoft.com/office/migration/.

Since Microsoft will not be providing 16-bit Windows Viewers for Microsoft Excel or PowerPoint, another alternative is to consider viewing solutions available from third parties such as INSO (https://www.inso.com/) and Verity (https://www.keyview.com/microsoft.html).

Microsoft Access will not release a Viewer since database users tend to share entire databases and not just individual files. However, developers can offer similar functionality in their solutions with the Microsoft Access runtime version. The royalty-free runtime version allows users to view and change data but not the design (tables, forms, reports and queries) of the Microsoft Access database. This runtime license is available in the Office 97 Developer Edition.

Dual File Formats

In addition to the above three options, both Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint introduce a new file format that allows the information from both the version 97 and previous version to be saved into one file. For example, if a Microsoft Excel 97 user chooses to save a file in the Microsoft Excel 97 & 5.0/95 format, two data streams are created for that workbook file: one for version 97 and one for version 5.0/95. In PowerPoint, you can save both the PowerPoint 95 and PowerPoint 97 data streams in one file. If your PowerPoint 4 users have already installed the filter for PowerPoint 95 files, they will be able to read this file. Note that this file will be larger and it will take longer to save, but not open, the file. This combined file format is designed specifically for companies that are gradually migrating to Microsoft Office 97 (more detailed information to follow).

Batch File Converters

Finally, once the entire company is upgraded to Office 97, users or even administrators may want to take advantage of another tool available to help complete the migration. Batch file converters are available for Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word and will convert entire directories of files to Office 97 format. This will save time and the hassle of converting each file one at a time as needed. (Note, this converter is included with support for Microsoft Excel and Word, but needs to be installed from the Microsoft Office 97 Resource Kit Tools & Utilities for PowerPoint).

Understanding the limitations of down-rev saving files

Down-rev saving allows the creator of an Office 97 file to Save As the previous file format to facilitate sharing information within a workgroup. While down-rev saving allows for file sharing and collaboration, some of the functionality from the Office 97 applications will be lost (since the previous versions don't support the new features). For example, if a user creates a file in Microsoft Excel 97 that includes a Web Query and then saves this file as a Microsoft Excel 5.0/95 file, the Web Query will no longer work in the spreadsheet because this feature only works with Microsoft Excel 97.

Any organization gradually migrating to Office 97 needs to understand the implications that down-rev saving has on the original file. The following tables describe new features in Word, Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint that may be lost when down-rev saving. There is no table for Microsoft Access because files cannot be down-rev saved. (For more detailed information, please refer to the Microsoft Office 97 Resource Kit).

Word

When saving to Word 6.0/95 format, the only features that are actually lost are Visual Basic for Applications code and forms and Versioning. The Word team did a lot of work to preserve the Word 97 features for the Word 97 user. If a user with Word 6.0 or Word 95 subsequently makes changes to the file and saves it, the following features will then be lost as the earlier application does not know how to save them.

Basic Use Features

The following table describes new features in Word 97 that may affect your data or formatting in previous versions.

When this Word 97 feature	Is saved in Word 6.0/95 format
Embedded fonts	The embedded fonts are lost, and Word 6.0 or 95 assigns the closest font available.

Table Features

The following table describes new features in Word 97 that may affect your data or formatting in previous versions.

When this Word 97 feature	Is saved in Word 6.0/95 format
Vertical text in table cells	Vertical text is reformatted as horizontal text.
Vertically aligned text in table cells	Vertically aligned text is reformatted to align at the top of the cell.
Vertically merged table cells	Merged table cells are exploded into unmerged cells.

Graphics Features

The following table describes new features in Word 97 that may affect your data or formatting in previous versions.

When this Word 97 feature	Is saved in Word 6.0/95 format
EMF, PNG, and JPEG graphics	Graphics are converted to WMF (Windows Metafile) or PICT (Macintosh) format, which does not support graphics compression. This increases file size of documents that contain graphics.
Office Art objects	Office Art objects are converted to the nearest available shape and tool.

Formatting Features

The following table describes new features in Word 97 that may affect your data or formatting in previous versions.

When this Word 97 feature	Is saved in Word 6.0/95 format
Animated text (Animation tab)	Animated text formatting is lost.
Embossed and engraved characters (Font tab)	Embossed and engraved character formatting is lost. The text becomes formatted as white text. To change the color of the text, select the text, click Font (Format menu), and then click Auto or Black in the Color box.
Shadow and outline effects (Font tab)	These effects are lost in Word for Windows, but are preserved in Word for the Macintosh.
Bullets and Numbering dialog box (Format menu)
Outline and heading numbered list (Outline Numbered tab)	Outline numbered lists and heading numbered lists are converted to regular text, but retain their appearance. In Word 6.0 and 95, you can use the Bullets and Numbering command (Format menu) to format the lists.
Multilevel bullets (Outline Numbered tab)	Multilevel bullets are converted to regular text, but retain their appearance. In Word 6.0 and 95, you can use the Bullets and Numbering command (Format menu) to format the lists.
Borders and Shading dialog box (Format menu)
Page borders (Page Border tab)	Page borders are not converted.
Character shading (Shading tab)	Character shading is lost.
Character borders (Borders tab)	Character borders are lost.
Paragraph borders (Borders tab)	New Word 97 paragraph borders are lost.
Floating pictures surrounded by wrapped text	Floating pictures are converted in frames to WMF (Windows Metafile) or PICT (Macintosh) format.
Floating OLE objects	Floating OLE objects are converted to OLE objects in frames.
Highlighting applied with the Highlight button (Formatting toolbar)	Highlighting is preserved in Word 95, but is lost in Word 6.0.

Workgroup and Internet Features

The following table describes new features in Word 97 that may affect your data or formatting in previous versions.

When this Word 97 feature	Is saved in Word 6.0/95 format
New document properties (File menu) introduced in Word 95	New document properties are preserved in Word 95 but lost in Word 6.x. In Word, you can use the Properties command (File menu) to store information about the document, such as title, subject, author, manager, company and so on.
HYPERLINK field (Insert menu)	The last value of the HYPERLINK field is retained as plain text, and the field itself is lost.
Password protection options in the Save As dialog box (File menu)	All document protection is lost. In Word 6.0 and 95, you can reapply document protection by clicking Save As (File menu), clicking Options, and then selecting the options you want on the Save tab.
Protect Document settings (Tools menu) for tracked changes, comments and forms	All document protection is lost. In Word 6.0 and 95, you can reapply document protection for tracked changes, comments and forms by clicking Protect Document (Tools menu) and selecting the options you want. (In Word 6.0 and 95, tracked changes were called revisions, and comments were called annotations).
Tracked changes to properties, paragraph numbers, and display fields (Tools menu)	Tracked changes for properties, paragraph numbers, and display fields are lost, but other tracked changes are retained and shown with revision marks.
Versions (File menu)	Version settings are lost. However, if you display an older version of a document and then save it in an older format, Word 97 suggests a different file name making it difficult to overwrite the Word 97 document and lose data in later versions.

Other Features

The following table describes new features in Word 97 that may affect your data or formatting in previous versions.

When this Word 97 feature	Is saved in Word 6.0/95 format
DOCPROPERTY field	The DOCPROPERTY field is retained in Word 95. In Word 6.x, the field appears as "Error! Bookmark not defined."
Forms controls	Forms controls can be displayed, but not modified.
Unicode characters (two bytes per character)	May result in potential data loss. Unicode characters are mapped to corresponding ANSI (Windows) or one byte per character (Macintosh), or are converted to question marks (?) if no equivalent character is available. Foreign language characters are most likely to be affected.
Word 97 macros, and toolbar, menu, and keyboard customizations	Macros and customized elements are lost.