Word - am I outdated?

[giropaul]

I used to use Microsoft Office a lot until I stopped working.

All was well until recently I was emailed some Word documents. They sort of download, but I can’t fill in information, and the formatting is out of kilter.
It’s the same on all of my computers/tablets ( long story).

On one I get a message that my Word needs updating.

Presumably that means ££££?

[Polar Bear]

I went to Libre Office which is free and save all of my documents in the older office format, i.e. .doc instead of .docx for word documents, etc.

[Lightning Phil]

What version of Word do you have?

[giropaul]

What version of Word do you have?

Incredibly, I have no idea.

I only use an iPad these days. My computers are incredibly seldom used. I’ll try to start one tomorrow.

[citoyen]

What version of Word do you have?

Incredibly, I have no idea.

I only use an iPad these days. My computers are incredibly seldom used. I’ll try to start one tomorrow.

MS Office (including Word) operates on a subscription model these days - and has done so for several years.

So whatever version you have, you can be sure it is very out of date.

If you subscribe, you will always have the latest version.

If you don’t want to subscribe, there are options other than Word, as others have said.

ETA: ignore me - I just fact-checked myself and it seems I’m mistaken. Office has been available as a subscription service since 2011, but in fact it seems you can still buy it as a one-off - though obviously you won’t get updates if you do this.

https://www.techadvisor.com/article/742957/microsoft-office-2021-everything-you-need-to-know.html

[Feanor]

What version of Word do you have?

Incredibly, I have no idea.

I only use an iPad these days. My computers are incredibly seldom used. I’ll try to start one tomorrow.

Help > About will tell you.
Its the only way to answer your question.

2016 or later should be fine.
I still use 2016 non subscription and have zero compatibility issues.

Anything pre 2016 might be a bit old.

[T42]

Anything pre 2016 might be a bit old.

Heh - I use Word 2000, ©1999.  Got Open Office somewhere, probably from 2005 or so.  Don't care.

[SteveC]

Mrs C gets these messages about Office-365 every time she tries to use the on-line help.
We have legit versions of Word (for Mac) which still work fine and are still being updated.

[Mr Larrington]

Microsith done me an update for Excel 2013 a couple of days ago.

[DaveReading]

Anything pre 2016 might be a bit old.

Heh - I use Word 2000, ©1999.  Got Open Office somewhere, probably from 2005 or so.  Don't care.

Same here.  Word 2K will happily import docs created with later versions, so I see no need to upgrade.

[BFC]

I run office 2003 (sp3) variant of Word and Excel, with free updates it reads docx format.
One of the updates failed to install on the first release, which then blocked further updates until I managed to uninstall the rogue update.

All on a windows 7 OS.

[giropaul]

An amateur search seems to tell me that I’ve got Word 2000.

[Feanor]

At what point did they introduce .docx?
Edit: Office 2007 according to google.
I dont think older versions will be able to read those.
You'd need people to save in the old .doc format if using older.

How many versions back did they retrospectivly add docx support?

[Polar Bear]

I'm not sure when the "X" suffix appeared exactly but I know that in our social group with varying levels of IT competence and kit the "X" made life difficult for some.

I found that with Open Office and later Libre Office it is simple to set the default for saving documents as Office '97 to '04 ? format and have done so ever since.  I don't experience issues personally using Libre Office but apparently there are occasional glitches with the excel equivalent if trying to edit spreadsheets created with some of the excel-specific macros.

[lissotriton]

At least docx is an open format, so can be properly supported by other modern software. Both opening them and saving them.

Also doc files are a security risk, much more likely to contain viruses etc. Probably best avoided for sharing files with others.

[BFC]

I'm not sure when the "X" suffix appeared exactly but I know that in our social group with varying levels of IT competence and kit the "X" made life difficult for some.

I found that with Open Office and later Libre Office it is simple to set the default for saving documents as Office '97 to '04 ? format and have done so ever since.  I don't experience issues personally using Libre Office but apparently there are occasional glitches with the excel equivalent if trying to edit spreadsheets created with some of the excel-specific macros.

In excel the major thing that can go wrong is with conditional formatting, older versions were limited to 3 logical tests, later versions are allowed a lot more (I never found the limit on 2010 version at work!). Conditional formats may be converted to fixed formats when saving/converting to older variants.

Licensed older versions of word/excel can read "x" versions if the updates have been downloaded.

[HTFB]

In excel the major thing that can go wrong is with conditional formatting,

The major difference between .xls and .xlsx format is that .xls can only handle 65,536 rows and a .xlsx can have 1,048,576. This can be relevant, for example when despite it being 2020 your Covid case reporting chain inexplicably includes a step translating into xls format...

[Kim]

In search of a solution that would put Real Excel™ on the BHPC's Shiny! New! Babbage-Engine in a way that would be reliable when the machine is switched off for weeks on end and then booted up without an internet connection^[1] (and on a bad day, without electricity), we ended up purchasing a licence for Office 2021 Home & Student Edition from https://www.fairsoftware.co.uk/ for the princely sum of £19.95.

An approach that I can recommend.


_{[1] Prior experience of Office 365 suggests that, given the chance, it will insist on authenticating when you're running late for the start of the Wacky Races, the cellular signal is rubbish and it's raining.}

[telstarbox]

That's not bad considering my work Office 365 subscription is about £10 / month / user, although that does include other bits like Teams.

[Kim]

Not having Teams is practically an advantage 

[Jaded]

Indeed. Teams is the Publisher of the virtual meeting world.

I’d pay to not have it.

[Lightning Phil]

That seems pretty good value considering how much office used to be

[citoyen]

I’d pay to not have it.

Unfortunately, I'm required to use Teams for work. Fortunately we don't use it too extensively - just for meetings, messaging and sharing files with clients.

we ended up purchasing a licence for Office 2021 Home & Student Edition from https://www.fairsoftware.co.uk/ for the princely sum of £19.95.

An approach that I can recommend.

Nice.

If you buy it that way, do you get to choose which bits to install? It's probably different on Windoze but previously when I bought an Office licence direct from Microsoft, they forced me to download and install absolutely bloody everything. I later discovered that if you subscribe via the App Store, you can choose which bits to download - which means no Powerpoint for me, thank you very much. I currently have just Word, Excel and Teams installed.

I vaguely recall back in the days when I had an XP machine at home, and my copy of Windows lived on a CD (or several CDs), you could choose which bits to install.

_{[1] Prior experience of Office 365 suggests that, given the chance, it will insist on authenticating when you're running late for the start of the Wacky Races, the cellular signal is rubbish and it's raining.}

Ain't that the truth.

[Kim]

we ended up purchasing a licence for Office 2021 Home & Student Edition from https://www.fairsoftware.co.uk/ for the princely sum of £19.95.

An approach that I can recommend.

Nice.

If you buy it that way, do you get to choose which bits to install? It's probably different on Windoze but previously when I bought an Office licence direct from Microsoft, they forced me to download and install absolutely bloody everything. I later discovered that if you subscribe via the App Store, you can choose which bits to download - which means no Powerpoint for me, thank you very much. I currently have just Word, Excel and Teams installed.

I wasn't paying much attention, as I opted to just install everything (high-spec machine with plenty of disk, and while it's only really Excel that we need for race timing, it didn't seem impossible that the other packages might come in useful for molishing signage at a world championships, or flipping through slides on a cycle show stand or whatever), but it did a large download and then gave me something that looked like the traditional Microsoft installer where you get to choose.

[Mr Larrington]

AIUI when you install Office Microsith insists on installing the whole bloody lot but only switches on the bits you tell it you want.  Thus it will install humongous updates for the bits you don’t use as well as the ones you do.  And depending on which version you have, will also keep trying to switch Skype back on