MS Word 2011: save as .doc or as .docx?

Hi,
is there any disadvantage of saving Microsoft Word files as .doc instead of .docx? I think, .doc can be opened by more computers. Within the settings fo MS Word 2011 one can chose whether you want the files to be saved as .doc or as .docx
Thanks swenniels

The are docx viewers, but if you need to interchange and edit documents between people/groups that use a version of Office pre-2010 then stick to .doc

The Office Open XML format (Office documents with "x" at the end of the file extension) has been the standard office format for more than six years now. In that time, there have been three Windows and two Mac versions that support the standard. I think you're probably safe with the OOXML format unless you're sending content to people with really old installations of Office.

mrplow said:

The are docx viewers, but if you need to interchange and edit documents between people/groups that use a version of Office pre-2010 then stick to .doc

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The XML format was made the standard by Microsoft with the release of Windows Office 2007. Just thought you'd like to know.

best to use docx... unless you are sharing files with someone who has word mac 2004, which let's face it, that's 10 year old technology and they should be updating their software anyway. when in doubt use rtf

It really depends on who you exchange documents with. I work for a huge, international company. We use office 2011 but save to .doc because many of of clients still use office xp.

So while I'd agree docx is the way forward it really depends on the use case

I've had far fewer performance problems sticking with docx using Word for Mac 2011 and only save to doc if I have to send a file to a user who requires that format. When I get the file back I let it convert to docx.

I created a document in Pages on my iPad and emailed it to myself so I could open it on my iMac (I don't have Pages on my iMac, only Libre). I selected Word format when emailing from the iPad and it showed up as a .docx file. But Libre crashes/won't open every time I try to open the file on my iMac. I'm running 4.1.2 or 4.2.1 in Libre, whatever is the most recent. I always update it regularly. I'm just wondering if this is a Libre thing or what.

jediracer said:

best to use docx... unless you are sharing files with someone who has word mac 2004, which let's face it, that's 10 year old technology and they should be updating their software anyway.

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Why? It still works for me!

MYmacROX said:

I created a document in Pages on my iPad and emailed it to myself so I could open it on my iMac (I don't have Pages on my iMac, only Libre). I selected Word format when emailing from the iPad and it showed up as a .docx file. But Libre crashes/won't open every time I try to open the file on my iMac. I'm running 4.1.2 or 4.2.1 in Libre, whatever is the most recent. I always update it regularly. I'm just wondering if this is a Libre thing or what.

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Did you try viewing the document with quick view (highlight and press the space bar) to see if the formatting was OK? Also, TextEdit can open *.doc and *.docx.

If both those ideas fail, then it may be a corrupted document which could be the fault of Pages.

chscag said:

Did you try viewing the document with quick view (highlight and press the space bar) to see if the formatting was OK? Also, TextEdit can open *.doc and *.docx.

If both those ideas fail, then it may be a corrupted document which could be the fault of Pages.

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Thanks, I'll try that when I get home tonight. I re-sent the doc a 2nd time last night just to see if maybe it was just a fluke that it failed the first time.

It was originally created in Windows with MS Office Word, emailed to self and saved in OSX years ago when I had SL. I've always opened and edited it with OpenOffice until I moved to Libre about a year or so ago. The file gets opened on occasion, so I know the original works with Libre, but not the .docx version created by iOS Pages. So weird.

I'll report back on those suggestions.

Thanks.

EDIT: File isn't corrupted, I just logged into gmail and opened it with Word 2007 on my work computer running Windows 7.

Always leave my default as .doc as it is amazing the number of Windows users who have never heard of the Open XML translators and use Office 2004, and earlier.

EDIT: File isn't corrupted, I just logged into gmail and opened it with Word 2007 on my work computer running Windows 7.

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That's interesting. I wonder now if Pages might be at fault? I've transposed documents both ways with Pages (iWork 08) when I ran it for awhile and it always worked without file corruption. However, there has been some chit chat about the new version of Pages and the changes that Apple has made to it. I don't have a copy so I can't really comment on what if anything may be different.