Check Compatibility Of Word 2007 Documents

Before you send out that beautifully formatted Word 2007 document, it’s a good idea to have Office check the compatibility of your document with other versions of Word.

For example, if your document contains SmartArt (which is a feature that is not supported in earlier versions of Word), when a colleague using Word 2003 opens your document, the SmartArt graphics will be converted into a single object that cannot be edited.

To have Office check the document for features that are not supported in earlier versions of Word, follow these steps:

• Click the Office button.
• Point to Prepare in the left pane and click Run Compatibility Checker.

Word 2007 provides a report that lists the document’s unsupported features and details what you can do …

Word 2007 provides a report that lists the document’s unsupported features and details what you can do, if anything, to make your document readable in earlier versions.

If you frequently e-mail documents in compatibility mode, you can have Word automatically run a compatibility check every time you save a file.

To do so, select the Check Compatibility When Saving In Word 97-2003 Formats check box in the Word Compatibility Checker dialog box before clicking OK to close the compatibility report.