Some people don't have software to open Microsoft Office 2007 documents.  These documents end like this; (e.g., .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.) from newer version of Office and they are unable to read them.

 

Two workable options are:

1.)     Install the “Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats”

< http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en >
(may have to open this link in Internet Explorer…Firefox may not be ‘recognized’ on Microsoft’s website) and its related service pack. 

< http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9A1822C5-49C6-47BD-8BEC-0D68693CA564&displaylang=en > This will allow you to open Office 2007 files within 200X transparently.  You won’t even know it is happening as everything occurs without your involvement once installed.  I am asking CSS to install these converters on all future images, and update existing labs as soon as convenient.  If you wish to download and install these on your teacher workstations, just download them and double click the installers and accept the defaults and it will install easily.  All you need is Office 2000 or 2003 installed on your machine to do this.

2.)     In a pinch, http://docx-converter.com/ < http://docx-converter.com/ > will convert your Word documents (not other formats, sorry) to HTML files.  The problem is that most of the formatting in HTML is not very good.  This is an option to read the content, but if you want a printed copy, you want to go to #1 and take the time to install the software once and for all.