Issues with Microsoft Office 2007

Faculty,

Please take a moment to get familiar with some of the issues with the new Microsoft Office 2007 for our students.

Office 2007 provides a new format for Office documents. The new formats for Word, Excel, and Power Point now have an "x" in the extension. For example, an Office 2003 Word document had the extension ".doc". An Office 2007 Word document has the extension ".docx".

Educator has now solved the problem with Office 2007 downloading through Internet Explorer. However, there are other issues to consider. Many students do not have Office.

If you are not teaching a CIS course, you should save all Word documents as either .rtf (Rich Text Format), .txt (Plain Text Format), or .pdf (Adobe Reader format). PDF documents are the best format to assure you that your students will print exactly what you intended. However, if the look or formatting of your document is not significant to the information contained in the document, the other formats are preferable. If you feel that you must use a Microsoft Office document, please save it in the 2003 format and make certain the extension does not have an "x" on the end (.ppt, .xls, doc). Be aware that students must have Microsoft Office to open Microsoft Office documents. Anyone can open .txt, .rtf, or .pdf.

Please feel free to contact our Help Desk with any questions. In the next few weeks, we will be adding more information to this section to keep you updated and offer additional options.

-Distance Ed Staff