Office for Mac 2008 & File Compatibility

[Justin]

I am an Accounting student and as such I use Excel quite a bit.
Sometimes the assigned are essay form so using Word is obviously a
better choice.
Usually what I do, is once I have the Word document open, I write the
essay questions normally, and for exercises that require a spreadsheet,
I create a new Excel document and insert the file into the Word
document. That way I'm not sending my professor 15 different files.
My questions is, how can I ensure compatibility? Today he told me about
another student on a Mac who sent in an assignment and when he (the
prof) opened it up it was completely blank.
When I open up one of my Word files with Excel files embedded in Neo
Office - they just don't show up. I used NeoOffice just to test, and I
keep it installed on the system in case somebody sends me a wacky file
format like ODF.
I am thinking I should just set all Office Apps to save as doc, xls, and
ppt rather than the XML (docx, xlsx, pptx) format, ad make sure I only
embed xls (Excel 2004 format) files into my Word file.
In the meantime I print everything to PDF and send him both files -
which he said is OK for now.

[Dick Burns]

If he has a version of Office that doesn't read the xml files, he won't see
them without a converter.

Yes: >I am thinking I should just set all Office Apps to save as doc, xls,

and
> ppt rather than the XML

"Justin" <jus...@becauseihatenospam.org> wrote in message
news:justin-6321BF....@news.eternal-september.org...

[Peter Flynn]

On 26/10/10 02:16, Justin wrote:
> I am an Accounting student and as such I use Excel quite a bit.
> Sometimes the assigned are essay form so using Word is obviously a
> better choice.
> Usually what I do, is once I have the Word document open, I write the
> essay questions normally, and for exercises that require a spreadsheet,
> I create a new Excel document and insert the file into the Word
> document. That way I'm not sending my professor 15 different files.
> My questions is, how can I ensure compatibility?

Don't send people documents with externally-embedded fragments. Better
still, don't submit editable documents: they are far too easy to change.

> Today he told me about
> another student on a Mac who sent in an assignment and when he (the
> prof) opened it up it was completely blank.
> When I open up one of my Word files with Excel files embedded in Neo
> Office - they just don't show up. I used NeoOffice just to test, and I
> keep it installed on the system in case somebody sends me a wacky file
> format like ODF.
> I am thinking I should just set all Office Apps to save as doc, xls, and
> ppt rather than the XML (docx, xlsx, pptx) format,

That will not improve anything. Using ODF would be only marginally better.

> and make sure I only

> embed xls (Excel 2004 format) files into my Word file.
> In the meantime I print everything to PDF and send him both files -
> which he said is OK for now.

That is the correct answer. It's not "OK for now", it's "that's the
right solution".

///Peter

[Justin]

In article <8irlni...@mid.individual.net>,
Peter Flynn <peter...@m.silmaril.ie> wrote:

The only problem is sometimes professors send files back with notations
- hence I need to send a editable file.
So far I haven't had any problems with XLS objects embedded in DOC files.
I go to INSERT -> OBJECT and then I choose Excel 97-2004 Sheet.
Remember I'm using Office 2008 for *Mac.* if that makes a difference.

J