I have read some of the threads and options, someone said to save the
document to the old format but I do not have that option. Am I suppose to buy
a Vista Office to get the word and excel? The only options I have to "open
with" are...Wordpad or Adobe, when I try either, they open with heiroglyphics
and wingdings..can anyone lead me in the right direction? new to vista and
new to this new laptop.
Your question is very hard to understand, but let me ask several
questions and point out several things:
1. Do I correctly understand that you are receiving Word 2007 and
Excel 2007 files as E-mail attachments? These would have extensions
(the last characters at the end of the file name, after the dot) of
..docx and .xlsx.
2. Do you have *any* version of Microsoft Office (Word and Excel)
installed?
3. There is no such thing as "Vista Office." You are probably
referring to Microsoft Office 2007, but that can run on both Windows
XP and Vista.
4. You can't open Word or Excel files in either Wordpad or Adobe
Reader. They are both unsuitable for these files, and you get garbage
if you try--what you call "heiroglyphics and wingdings."
5. If you have been sent .docx and .xlsx files, and have pre-2007
versions of Word and Excel, you are not the one to "save the document
to the old format"; it's the person who created the files who would
need to do that. You could ask the sender to use Save as, and save
them as .doc and .xls files (the old formats) before sending them to
you.
Alternatively, you could install the free patches available from
Microsoft (search for them on the Microsoft web site); that would
permit you to open these files in your older versions.
6. If you don't have any versions of Word and Excel installed, you can
download free viewers for these from Microsoft's web site. Be sure to
get the 2007 version. These viewers will permit you to view the files
you've been sent, but not to modify them or create others.
7. One final point: I should also caution you that opening attachments
like this is very risky. They can contain macro viruses. You often see
advice not to open attachments from people you don't know. I think
that that's one of the most dangerous pieces of advice you see around,
because it implies that it's safe to do the opposite--open attachments
from friends and relatives. But many viruses spread by sending
themselves to everyone in the infected party's address book, so
attachments received from friends are perhaps the *most* risky to
open.
Even if the attachment legitimately comes from a friend, it can
contain a virus. I'm not suggesting that a friend is likely to send
you a virus on purpose, but if the friend is infected without
realizing it, any attachment he sends you is likely to also be
infected.
