Saving Office 2010 functionality into Office 2007

[Jack21]

Hi - can anyone help?

We are in the process of upgrading machines across the business with some users working in Office 2010 and others in Office 2007. Office 2010, specifically Excel 2010, allows much more functionality compared to Excel 2007, so if a user creates a spreadsheet in Excel 2010 then saves it as an xlsx file, then forwards to a user in Excel 2007 some of the funtionality is removed. Is there a way in Excel 2010 that will ensure no functionality is lost when opening in Excel 2007?

We also have the same issue for Access - any guidance very much appreciated.

Thanks
Jack

[HansV]

Features that were introduced in Office 2010 obviously can't be used retroactively in Office 2007. But the Office 2010 format is mostly compatible with Office 2007 - new features will generally be preserved even if the document/workbook/presentation/database is edited in Office 2007, unless the user does something that explicitly overwrites such a feature.

There are a few things to watch out for. For example, controls on a form or report in Access 2007/2010 can be arranged in a stacked or tabular layout.
In Access 2010, a layout may contain empty cells:

S021.png

Access 2007 doesn't allow empty cells in a layout, so it can't open databases that have them. You have to delete empty layout cells if you want to share a database with Access 2007 users. (I usually remove the layout altogether to avoid problems; I find it too restrictive anyway.)

[Jack21]

Thanks as always Hans.