Peter wrote:
Assume you have Office 2000. You compose a Word document using the super duper templates and one teensy VBA stub you don't even notice or know about, and which uses a feature not present in W97. You send it to someone who uses O97. Is it compatible ? Is that what you are saying ?
Word 97 is obsolete. Don't use it. Same goes for Windows 98. Any MS software which is not at least 2000 version is obsolete. Even MS don't want you to use it. They want you to upgrade. Pay more money. And then upgrade again and pay more money again. And again. If you use MS software, you have to upgrade every 3 or 4 years. But even if not, you have to upgrade once in a while to be compatible with other people and for security reasons. But it's not only with software - even with cars you have to upgrade once in a while. But there is no issue of compatibility here. The issue is about new developments, technology- and security-related. And in other industries too. MS didn't invent upgrading, but they pushed it to its limit... An optional way to overcome this is to come up with a standard for Office files, such as RTF. But companies like MS don't want a standard - they want to own their formats. The only way to overcome it is forcing it by law. Otherwise there will never be a standard, and we will always have to upgrade even if we don't want any new features. The ideal is that only people who want new features will upgrade, and people will not be forced to upgrade for compatibility reasons. When you save files with MS-Word you can select many formats, including RTF and others. But the default format is "Word Document". I guess at least 95% of the users don't bother to change it. And MS don't even write WHICH Word Document version the file is saved in. It's a part of their strategy to confuse & conquer. Best Regards, Uri Even-Chen Speedy Net Raanana, Israel. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: +972-9-7715013 Website: www.uri.co.il -------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
