Changing the Default Document Format

Normally, Word saves your documents in what is known as "Word format." In Word 2007 that means that the documents are stored in a format based on XML. This format may not be easily understood by other versions of Word, nor by other programs.

If you do a lot of work creating documents for other versions of Word or other programs, you may want to specify a different default file format for your documents. Word makes this easy by following these steps:

1. Click the Office button, then click Word Options. Word displays the Word Options dialog box.
2. Click the Save option at the left side of the dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. Use the Save Files In This Format drop-down list to select a default file format.
4. Click on OK.