I often receive e-mail attachments that I am unable to open. They come from people I know and they are things that I am expecting so they are not viruses. They should be documents but they end .docx . Other people seem to have no problems opening the same documents. Do I need a new version of Word?
You are correct in thinking that the problem is to do with the age of your version of Microsoft Office. When Microsoft brought out Office 2007 they changed the way that documents and files are saved. This means that any file created in Word 2007 or Word 2010 will not open in previous versions of Word. This is also the case for Excel too. You can identify these new files by the x at the end of the file names. The good news is that you do not need to purchase new software. Microsoft have produced a Compatibility Pack that can be downloaded from their website. Go to www.microsoft.com/downloads and install this pack and then you will be able to open and view these attachments. Best of all, it’s FREE.