OFF2000: Compatibility Issues with Office 98 Macintosh Edition
ID: Q234300
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The information in this article applies to:
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Microsoft Office 2000
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Microsoft Office 98 Macintosh Edition
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 Features Not Supported in Word 98
Word 2000 Feature Description Word 98 Result
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Nested tables Tables within table cells Converted to tabbed text
in the "parent" cell
Floating tables Text wraps around a table Placed in a frame
Table AutoFit Autofitting of table cells Column widths at save time
when graphics are included preserved
Table cell spacing White space and border Lost except left and right
and cell padding settings padding, generally
preserved as cell "gap"
Text around graphics Text can be wrapped around Graphics inside cells with
in table cells images inside table cells text wrapping turned on move above the table
Page breaks in table A page break can be Page breaks made within
cells inserted within a cell of table cells do not
a table appear in Word 98
Image Properties New image options, Settings not supported in
including vertical from Word 98 are lost
line, horizontal settings,
overlap disallowed, and
absolute vertical
positioning.
Text wrapping break Text automatically breaks Becomes a line break
to accommodate inline
graphics
Border and shading New 3-D border styles 3-D border styles appear
as single-line borders
Underline New decorative and color Decorative underline
underline options becomes single underline,
and underline color
becomes the color of the
text
Pixels and The units of measurement Measurement at save time
percentage of page for HTML are supported are preserved
as measurements for by Word 2000 where
images and tables appropriate
24-bit color To fully support HTML Closed match; applies to
editing, Word 2000 allows font, border, and shading
users to use 24-bit
colors in graphics
WordArt as an WordArt objects are Remains inline and still
inline object inserted inline by editable to an extent,
default, enabling them to though much functionality
be used for buttons and is disabled
banners
Inline horizontal Word 2000 natively supports Remain inline and still
lines horizontal lines with full editable to an extent,
HTML functionality though much functionality
is disabled
Frameset Powerful new tools enable Frame properties lost but
users to create and view individual documents are
WYSIWYG frames pages saved
FE font formats Includes document grid, Close match (for example,
emphasis marks, and colored underlines become
colored underlines the same color as the
font; enclosed characters
are preserved) except
grid, which is lost
BIDI formats Right-to-left paragraphs Just as when opening a
Word 98 BIDI document,
unsupported properties
like right-to-left text
are lost, and the
text becomes left-to-right
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
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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
- Excel 2000 Features Not Supported in Excel 98
Excel 2000 Feature Description Excel 98 Result
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External data Data ranges extracted Auto-refresh, column
ranges from external data sources formatting, filtering, and
can be automatically sorting do not work
refreshed, formatted,
filtered, and sorted
Indented format Allows you to create If edited, reports change
PivotTable reports professional-looking to non-indented layout but
database-style reports maintain character and cell
with various levels of formatting
indentation
OLAP PivotTable and Enables you to create Appear as read-only
PivotChart reports PivotTable views against
any OLE DB for OLAP
provider
PivotChart reports Charts can be linked to Appear as regular charts,
data views in a Pivot- multiple level category
Table labels are modified, and
value axis display units
convert to literal values
- PowerPoint 2000 Features Not Supported in PowerPoint 98
PowerPoint 2000
Feature Description PowerPoint 98 Result
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Animated GIF Animated GIFs can be Appear as static images
pictures inserted and displayed in without animation
a slide show and in the
browser
Automatically Provides numbered bullets Appear as bulleted lists,
numbered lists that automatically adjust not numbered lists
their order in a logical
sequence
Graphic or picture PowerPoint 2000 supports Appear as regular font-
bullets the use of graphics in based bullets
place of bullets
Tables Tables can be created Appear as a single grouping
without using Excel or of shapes
Word
Voice narration Playback of narration is Bullet point animations are
now synchronized with the not synchronized to the
original presentation, voice narration; there is a
including all slide long gap in the audio
transitions and build between slides
animations
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:
- Margins are sometimes compressed or do not appear as intended.
- Table, paragraph, and page borders may be too thick or not present.
- PowerPoint 2000 presentations must be saved as HTML v3 using the Save as command.
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