File extensions (.wps, .xlsx, etc)

[ADMIRALSTOCKDALE]

okay, so you all probably know by now that i am out of my element when it comes to computers, and so i have no shame in continuing to ask some of the most elementary questions on the entire internet....

so i'm using works or excel and i save the file to whatever the default is. i e-mail it to someone and nobody can ever open it. i'm told to save it as something else (and send again), which i don't konw how to do (and what?), or to save it as something different initially.

what do i do? how would i re-save at another extension (and which) and can i just use any extension when i save to begin with?

 

[mia1994]

If you save it in the excel format (.xls), then it must be opened with Excel. To resave it with a different format (extension) you simply "save as" and then change the file type (use the drop down). .CSV will lose all of your formatting, but will work to ship the data. It literally saves it as text with the cells seperated by commas.

 

[Anastasis]

Are you using MSOffice 2007? The default save format is .docx for Word and .xlsx for Excel. These formats are not backwards compatible for previous versions of Office unless the end user downloads a special plug-in for their version of office. When they try to open the new extension, office should prompt them to install the conversion plugin. You can circumvent this **** by going to save and selecting "Excel 97-2003 workbook" or whatever. This saves the file as a .xls for example. They should be able to open this file without a problem. I don't know if there is a way to change the default save setting so you dont have to do it manually, probably so.