Microsoft’s newest version of Office saves  documents in a format that is incompatible with  the Mac version of Office…or any other Mac application for that matter.

“Microsoft Office Open XML” is the name of the new format that applies across Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications on PCs using Office 2007.  Specifically, the formats are saved as .docx, .xlsx and .pptx.  Currently, these formats cannot be opened on a Mac.

If you’re a PC user and you have Office 03, you can download a compatibility pack which makes it possible to open Office 2007 documents.  Microsoft’s Business Unit promises that Mac Office users will get similar download pack…but has yet to tell us when.

Still, there is a ray of hope for Mac Users…Novell has promised that it will release code  that supports these new formats to the open source developers of Open Office by the end of January.  Novell is even taking it one step further and releasing translation software to help documents created in either suite to be opened in the other.

source: Macworld UK