OFF2000: Compatibility Issues with Office 98 Macintosh Edition

ID: Q234300


The information in this article applies to:


SUMMARY

Office 2000 has been designed to work well with earlier versions of Microsoft Office, including Office 98 Macintosh Edition. Together, Office 2000 and Office 98 provide an effective dual-platform solution that enables you to easily create and share word-processing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

If your organization is deploying Office 2000 in an environment with Office 98 Macintosh Edition users, you probably have some specific questions about exactly how these versions of Office work with each other. This article has been prepared to address these questions.


MORE INFORMATION

File Format Compatibilities

The Office 2000 binary file format is the same as the binary file format used in Office 98. For example, an Excel 98 user can open, read, and edit a workbook saved as an Excel 2000 file, and vice versa, without any conversions.

Although advanced features and formatting specific to Office 2000 files are not visible when the files are opened in the Office 98 application, the underlying data is still available when the file is opened again in Office 2000.

HTML As a Companion File Format

Office 98 Macintosh Edition users are accustomed to the convenience of saving their files in HTML format, which allows them to publish a snapshot of the file and post it on a Web site. In Office 2000, HTML is a companion file format to the binary format. This gives you another way to work with HTML documents--documents that can be viewed on a Macintosh with Internet Explorer 4.x.

Some Office 2000 Features Are Not Supported in Office 98

Although Office 98 programs can open any Office 2000 file without a converter, certain formatting options available in Office 2000 are not available in Office 98, because Office 98 does not recognize these features.

The following tables describe the Office 2000 features that are not supported in Office 98 and what happens when a file is opened in Office 98. Word 2000 provides you the option of turning off unsupported features by selecting the Disable features not supported by Word 97 check box. (Click the Save tab in the Options dialog box on the Tools menu in Word 2000.)

NOTE: Although the check box says "Word 97", it applies to Word 98 as well.

By selecting Disable features not supported by Word 97, Office 2000 users can automatically ensure full compatibility with Word 98 users.

These items are also turned off (dimmed on screen) when the Word 2000 user saves a document in the older format or if the default Save format is the older format. These features are shown in the table below.


Feature                       Accessed Through
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Nested tables                 Table menu

Frames (Web-style)            Format menu

New Decorative Border         Borders and Shading dialog box
styles

New Character Underline       Format Font dialog box
styles

Underline color               Format Font dialog box

Text Wrapping Break           Insert Break dialog box

Horizontal in Vertical        "Tatenakayoko," from the Format menu when
                              FE UI is turned on

Two Lines in One              "Warichu," from the Format menu when FE UI
                              is turned on
 

Internet Explorer 4.x Can Be Used to View Office 2000 Documents Saved in HTML Format

Office 2000 includes HTML as a companion file format to the binary format. This allows Office 2000 users to share their work with Macintosh users equipped with Internet Explorer 4.5. However, there are a few situations you should be aware of:

Working with Office Server Extensions (OSE)

Office Server Extensions (OSE) are software components that make it possible for Office 2000 users to publish to a Web (intranet) site as if they are saving to a file server. This intranet is a dynamic place where people can easily use Web technology to share documents.

Office 98 users can use Internet Explorer 4.x to access and read these documents. However, they are unable to take part in shared threaded discussions around documents and Web pages or to receive automatic e-mail notification when relevant Web pages and documents have been commented on or have changed.

Additional query words: OFF2000


Keywords          : kbdta 
Version           : MACINTOSH:98; WINDOWS:2000
Platform          : MACINTOSH WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbinfo 

Last Reviewed: July 2, 1999