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Why did Microsoft change the formatting for documents to include an x at the end? Was there a reason for it other than to get everyone to buy their newest version of office? For example Word documents used to be .doc but now they are .docx Also is there a version of Open Office that can read Microsoft's new file types, or an ad on for it? I hate having to convert my files every time I work on something at school and then want to continue work on it at home. Every converter that I have used so far creates another file in the old formatting. |
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The new Microsoft Office Documents use XML-based file formats, called Open Office XML. Microsoft Office 2003 and earlier used Microsoft's proprietary file formats (.doc, .ppt, etc.). Do note that Microsoft tried incorporating XML as early as Office XP, but this format had several limitations, including poor backwards compatibility and huge file size. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML |
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to make you upgrade... that's about it... perhaps the docx format has different file formatting and they want to keep the two formats easy to distinguish. |
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For the small user, it probably does not make much difference, but the .**X files actually take up less space than the older files. I have seen reports with almost 50% savings in disk space. Dan |
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It allows for the new features included in 2007/2010 versions. It is also almost 50% smaller, as said before. |
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And yes, the latest OpenOffice/Libre Office reads and writes them (Mostly) fine. |
