You may already know that along with Office 2007, Microsoft introduced a new file format that is not compatible with older versions of Office. If you haven’t upgraded to Office 2007 or are using Mac OSX then you won’t be able to automatically open Word documents that carry the .docx extension or PowerPoint Presentations (.pptx). If you are using an older version of Office in Windows and attempt to open a .docx or .pptx file, you may be prompted with a message to install the Microsoft Compatibly Pack (which you should do) or you could get an error message. On a Mac, a .docx file will show up as a .zip file that you won’t be able to open in Word. This means that an instructor using Office 2003 could have trouble opening a Word 2007 document that a student submits in Blackboard.
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