You’re big meeting is in 5 minutes and that Word file you asked for finally comes in. You try to open it and you get a message that says “MS Word cannot open this file because it’s in the wrong format” or “…cannot open because the file is saved in a later format”. Your reaction is the same as everyone else - “OH $@!# I NEED THIS FILE NOW!”

Probably the most frustrating thing for anyone in any business is receiving a file and not being able to open it. It’s not because it was corrupted, but because the person who saved the file and sent it to you doesn’t quite understand that not everyone has the same just-came-out-of-the-box-yesterday program.

MS Office is one of those program suites that has this issue. More than others I’ve noticed. Anyone using Office 07 has a nasty habit of saving in the Office 07 format. For example, a Word file is saved as somefile.docx in 07, in previous versions of Word they are saved as somefile.doc. Excel 07 saves files as somefile.xlsx, while the older version will save them as somefile.xls.

Don’t be afraid to ask your customers for a previous version of a document or giving them an older version. This will help everyone out. You may think it’s minor, but too many minor file issues can cause problems – 5 minutes before the big meeting.