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Companies that have tons of documents, spreadsheets, and other files saved
in Microsoft Office 2003 and earlier formats face a couple of interesting issues
when considering upgrading to the 2007 Office family of products. The first
issue is whether their files work without modification on the new platform.
The answer is "Probably" as most.doc, .xls and .ppt files created
using Office 2003 should look fine when opened in Word 2007, Excel 2007, or
PowerPoint 2007. And the second issue is whether they can convert a zillion
.doc (or .xls or .ppt) files to .docx (or .xlsx or .pptx) so they can take advantage
of the smaller size these new XML-based file formats have compared to the legacy
proprietary Office file formats.

The answer to both questions is the Microsoft Office Migration Planning Manager,
which you can get from the Microsoft Download Center. The Office Migration Planning
Manager (OMPM) includes helpful documentation and a number of tools that can
make your life easier as you plan your 2007 Office migration. For example, using
the OMPM File Scanner (offscan.exe) you can scan systems on your network to
identify all Office files present and identify possible issues that might arise
when converting them to 2007 Office XML format. Such issues tend to arise for
documents that have complex formatting, embedded scripts or macros, or are highly
customized such as forms created using Excel. Once you've determined which legacy
Office files might experience conversion issues, you can use the advice in the
accompanying documentation to resolve or mitigate these issues by modifying
your files as required. Then once you're ready to convert your legacy Office
files to the new 2007 XML format, you can use another tool in the OMPM called
the Office File Converter (OFC) to convert in bulk your zillion .doc files to
.docx, your gazillion .xls files to .xlsx, and your squillion kagillion .ppt
files to .pptx.

I know one company that decided to use the OMPM for this even though they're
not planning on upgrading to 2007 Office in the near future. Why? Because the
2007 Office XML files are generally much smaller than their corresponding Office
2003 counterparts. And although the cost of storage continues to decline, the
storage needs of most businesses keep rising even faster, so knocking your document
storage requirements down from 4 TB to 3 TB or lower can make economic sense.
But if you convert all of your legacy Office files to the new XML format and
don't upgrade your desktop computers to use 2007 Office, how will your users
open these files? With the Microsoft Office Compatibility Packs for Word, Excel
and PowerPoint 2007 file formats. The key to all of this however, is planning.
Be sure to read the documentation that comes with the OMPM carefully so you
can plan your file migration, otherwise you may end up messing things up and
causing problems for users and for your business.

Has your company had experience using the OMPM? If so, feel free to email me
and I'll share your tips and trials with other readers of this newsletter.

ITworld

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