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Office 2003 update may cause compatibility problems; Panther's TextEdit?

Office 2003 update may cause compatibility problems; Panther's TextEdit?

CNET staff

A CNET article notes "Office 2003, the upcoming update of the company's market-dominating productivity package, for the first time will include tools for restricting access to documents created with the software. Office workers can specify who can read or alter a spreadsheet, block it from copying or printing, and set an expiration date."

The article goes on to note "Until now, PC users have been able to count on opening and manipulating any document saved in Microsoft Word's ".doc" format or Excel's ".xls" in any compatible program, including older versions of Office and competing packages such as Sun Microsystems' StarOffice and the open-source OpenOffice. But rights-protected documents created in Office 2003 can be manipulated only in Office 2003."

Developer sources have indicated to us that Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) includes a version of TextEdit that can open and edit Microsoft Word formatted files, which most recently have been XML-compatible. Should Microsoft start incorporating proprietary elements into Word-generated files, TextEdit could become unable to utilize the new format.

The change could also spell compatibility problems for Office v.X 10.1.4, the latest release of the software for Mac OS X, unless MIcrosoft issues a patch that will allow the software to read the new, digital rights-enabled files.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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