[NTLUG:Discuss] OpenOffice - winword formatting error issues -- MS Word versions

[terry]

Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> Terry wrote:  
> 
>>Correction:
>>I think Word 95 is version 6.0 (rather than 7.0)
> 
> 
> Nope.  MS Word for Windows releases:
> 
> 
> A)  Pre-Office, Win16 Versions (different versions than DOS):
>  1.0 =~ MS Word 4.0 (for DOS)
>  2.0 =~ MS Word 5.0 (for DOS)
> 
> Microsoft had different DOS versions, up thorough 5.0, while MS Word
> for Windows was version 2.0.  This was confusing.  In fact, Microsoft
> took forever to release MS Word for Windows, while Lotus gobbled up
> a lightweight desktop publishing (DTP) app known as Ami Pro which
> actually was the first WYSIWYG documentation program for Windows.
> 
> 
> B)  Win16 Office Versions (application "version skip")
>  6.0  = Office 4.0
>  6.0a = Office 4.1
>  6.0b = Office 4.2
>  6.0c = Office 4.3
> 
> When Windows 3.1 took off, Microsoft killed the MS Word for DOS version,
> the last being MS Word 5.0, and did a "version skip" of MS Word for
> Windows to 6.0.  The MS Office Suite was called version 4.  There were
> then 4 sub-revisions of the MS Office Suite:  4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 for
> a number of years.
> 
> Although there is still some debates on why Microsoft kept revisioning
> MS Word slightly, there was a well-documented case of purposely making
> MS Word for Windows both DR-DOS and, even more so, OS/2 incompatible.
> Unfortunately, MS Word for Windows 6.0 resulted in massive self-
> incompatibilities because of its use of binary record reads/writes in
> version 6.0 more than any other version.
> 
> Sometimes merely "patching" to 6.0c would cause you to be unable to
> read many documents from earlier 6.0 versions.  Fortunately Norton
> and others release "fix" tools for 6.0 to help recover these files.
> 
> 
> C)  Win32 Office Versions (suite "version skip")
>  7.0 = Office 7.0/95
>  8.0 = Office 8.0/97, 98 on Mac
>  9.0 = Office 9.0/2000, 2001 on Mac
> 10.0 = Office 10.0/XP, "X"/2002 on Mac
> 11.0 = Office 11.0/2003 (no Mac yet?)
> 
> With the introduction of Office 95, Microsoft finally "version skipped"
> all of the applications as well as the suite itself to the same version.
> Internally this was 7.0, but publicly it was 95.
> 
> I know the instinct is to assume Office 97 is 7.0, but it's actually 8.0.
> So 7.0 is 95, 8.0 is 97.
> 
> The other Win32 versions are accurate as listed above, with the latest
> Office being 11.0, known publicly as 2003.
> 
> 
> 

Oh, ok, sorry, I was looking at Word 97's dialogue box that said "Word 
Version 6.0 or 97"  (I overlooked "or")  My mistake.

This from my earlier post:
The Word 95 format worked fine.  I made additions to the file in both 
Word 95 (and .rtf as well), under Word 97.  When saving to the Word 95 
format, I was asked if I wanted to save as Word 95 or 97 and so I saved 
in both formats and both opened just fine back here on OpenOffice.
Here's what the Word 97 dialogue box said:
====================================================================
The file cannon.doc is a Word Version 6.0 or 95 for Windows Document.
Do you want to update to Word 97 format?

To update it, click Yes
To save it in Word 6.0/95 format, click, No.
Some types of changes may be lost.
=====================================================================

-- 
but test everything; hold fast what is good,
1 Thessalonians 5:21