Microsoft Word 2007 for Windows and Word 2008 for Mac save their files in a format that previous versions of Word cannot open. You’ll recognize them by their .docx filename extension. If you’re a Mac user and don’t yet have Word 2008, you can open these files from within Apple’s free TextEdit or Apple’s Pages ‘08 application, and then save them in .rtf format for use in QuarkXPress and other applications.
This kind of workaround is necessary because Microsoft’s Open XML Converter for Office 2004 has now been delayed until June (maybe to encourage more people to buy Office 2008?). And unfortunately, their current beta version of the converter has significant problems converting graphics and maintaining document formatting.
If you need a more robust conversion tool today, here’s a good option: NeoOffice for Mac.
This open source application opens Word and Excel 2007/2008 documents with formatting intact, and costs nothing unless you choose to support the project with your donation.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:36 am
If you are running Mac 10.5 Leopard, you can use text edit to open and edit docx files. I have opened a docx file and resaved it as a regular doc file and brought it into Quark no problem.
March 25th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Fritz, you are absolutely correct: Leopard’s TextEdit does a fine job of opening and converting .docx files. I’ve also had good luck opening those files with Pages ‘08, too. It’s nice to know, however, that there is a no cost option available for designers that are sticking with Tiger for now.
Another bonus of NeoOffice is that it can open some Office documents that otherwise appear horribly damaged and unrecoverable. That’s worth the price of admission right there.
Coincidentally, Jay Nelson and I spend some time discussing this topic in the March 17 edition of our Design Tools Weekly podcast.
Jeff