MS goes to great lengths to ensure Office is backwards compatible.

When you save any changes, it might prompt you to save as xlxs instead of xls (which you should do) but that should be the only thing you might come across.

Backward compatibility is quite good with the Office suite, particularly Word and Excel. You'll be prompted to open them in "compatibility mode" because there are new formats in newer versions of Office that are designed to mitigate viruses or macros doing bad things to your PC. I recommend any file you open you update it, but that is not required.

Try Libre Office. It is free and well supported and will open/save in all of the Office format. it's at www dot libreoffice dot org

YOu could also use OpenOffice which is derived from Office. It's also free from www dot oepnoffice dot org. It will show up as Apache Open Office.

Both of these work and are about 98% compatable. There are only a few exotic features of Office not supported. The plus side is both interfaces look like the old version of Office you know

Don't use office much these days, but I have Office 2003 installed. Works just fine with the newer office document.

There are a couple of patches/upgrades I need to apply first to the old windows installation. I have them stored on a drive, if you need them I can upload somewhere.

After doing this, I can read/write docx and xlxs documents and save them in the more modern format.

You can even read and process and write them on macs and linux. Either with Apple's apps (Numbers and others) or with Libre Office (free and open source, runs on everything).

doc and docx, ppt, pptx

So your files are safe.

BTW, look into libre office. It might save you a lot of money, with (hopefully) minor or zero glitches. Free to try (and use). No subscription. No cloud required.
Office replacement.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

Free as in Freedom.

Computer questions normally go here, if you're chased off this forum.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1095


🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀

It’s now “Microsoft 365.” https://www.office.com/

I generally prefer MS365 or older versions of Office because it always stays up to date. The exception is I use the “classic” Outlook rather than the “new Outlook’ because the new Outlook is web-based and I am used to the old one. I haven’t done much with Co-pilot.

I do a family subscription for multiple PCs, iPhones and iPads.

One big advantage to Office 365 is that it can be installed on several machines for one price. So if you have a desktop and laptop, you don't have to buy it twice. Plus, you get 1 TB of Onedrive storage

Your spreadsheets will open in later versions of MS Office, including 2024. They may open in compatibility mode (first link) and you can convert them to the newer xls if you need to use all the 2024 bells and whistles(second link).
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-excel-with-earlier-versions-of-excel-2fd9ffcb-6fce-485b-85af-fecfd651a5ac]
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-excel-with-earlier-versions-of-excel-2fd9ffcb-6fce-485b-85af-fecfd651a5ac#bm4]

I recently bought both 2021 and 2024 and have no problems but my oldest spreadsheet are from 2007.

I currently use Office 2021 and all my old files are accessible

I downloaded it on my current computer, soon to be replaced, and did some testing on it. It seems fantastic for spreadsheets, and also for word documents, and it looks just like my worksheets in Excel.

I never would have known about this if it wasn't for DU. You folks saved me a few bucks by not having to buy new Microsoft Office software to replace my old, and currently lagging, Microsoft 2000 office.

I found a decent Lenovo computer at best buy for only $350, and the specs are good enough for what I use a computer for. I purchased it online tonight.

So, I thank you for the advice.