Compatability of Word95 documents with Office2003 version

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Guest

I have been using Word for Windows95 on a Windows98 platform until recently,
when my computer died. My new computer has a free trial version of
Office2003, and is running WindowsXP Home. All of my Word95 documents are
backed up on Zip disks. 1) When I restore them to the new computer, will
Word2003 be able to read them, especially (this is somewhat critical) with
the formatting intact?

2) If not, do I have any options other than reloading Word for Windows 95 (I
am happy with the program, but see no reason to continue to work in the dark
ages - plus I have the small additional problem of no 3.5 inch floppy drive
from which to use my original floppies, although I do have the application
backed up on Zip disks.)

3) If Word2003 will read the old version of my documents, can someone remind
me of the names of the dictionaries I will want to restore from the backups
to facilitate my spell checkings? I seem to remember a general dictionary,
as well as a custom one that will contain entries specific to my 15+ years of
use with chemical compound names.

4) Finally, are the autotext entries that I have created over the years
identifiable by file name so that I can salvage those from my backups as
well? Thank you for any help you can give me.
 
Word 2003 should open your Word 95 documents with no trouble. Formatting
should be pretty much intact, but read
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm with the knowledge that,
under a new OS, you'll have a different printer driver (even for the same
printer).

As for backing up and restoring settings, see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/FilesToBackup.htm, which covers most of
the bases and also links to
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/ExportAutocorrect.htm, which offers
a macro for transferring AutoCorrect entries if desired.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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Thanks for the help Suzanne. Most of the information you directed me to
seems to assume that a user would still have the older version of Word on a
computer, and can access menus, etc. in the application. I don't have that
luxury. 1) Should I reload the software from the aforementioned backups so
that I can accomplish these tasks, or is there another way? 2) If I do reload
Word95 from the backups, should I uninstall the trial version of Office2003
in order to minimize conflicts, usage of similarly named folders and paths,
etc.?
 
If you have saved a copy of Normal.dot, you have already saved most of your
customizations. If you have also saved the .acl (AutoCorrect) file, you have
AutoCorrects as well. You can copy Normal.dot (under another name) onto the
new computer and access any toolbar/menu customizations, which you can copy
to a custom toolbar, which you can then use the Organizer to copy into your
new Normal.dot.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
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