I had some problems in the past when I saved documents in Word 2007 in docx format only to get cries for help of users who could not open the document because they were using a previous version of Word. I had the option to explain to them how they could open it (convert online or download the compatibility pack) or convert it to doc and send it to them again.

This happened several times and I finally decided to look for an option to change the default save format in Word. The article at Technix Update reminded me of that and I thought it would be nice to post the quick tutorial as well.

All that needs to be done is to open Word 2007. Once open a click on the Office icon on top and a selection of Word Options loads the menu where the default format can be changed. Just select Save in the left pane and pick Word 97-2003 Documents instead of the default Word Document.

A document that is simply saved will from now on have the file extension doc and not docx. I have not checked but I assume similar options are available for Excel and Powerpoint.