22 January 2007

Office with a View

Some people really like Microsoft Office. They use it to correspond, to balance their accounts, and to keep track of their clients. Some people really do not like Microsoft Office. They are “Perfectly” content with their word processor and do not wish to contribute to the vast Microsoft Empire any more than necessary. Unfortunately, for them they still have to do business with people who really like Microsoft Office.

It can be quite frustrating to receive an e-mail attachment that was created in a version of a Microsoft Office product that one does not possess. Would it not be lovely to be able to view and print these files without having to fork over the price of Microsoft Office? In the past, common folk would borrow a copy of their neighbor’s Office and install it on their computer. In recent years, Microsoft has tightened their product activation system and borrowing is no longer possible.

Microsoft, generous to a fault, has made provisions for people who could not afford the cost of Office. Long ago, they developed free viewer programs that will let you view, copy, and print Office documents - Word (DOC), Excel (XLS), and PowerPoint (PPT). While these Office viewers can have security issues (just like the full Office applications), they happen less often and can be considered somewhat safer in that regard.

The Microsoft Office viewers have a smaller footprint in terms of hard disk space and memory used, which makes them an option for older or overloaded machines. The PowerPoint viewer is especially useful because it lets you show your presentation on any Windows computer.

How to Get Them
Microsoft offers the Office viewers on their office Web site. Click here to go there and download them Viewers for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents are available. The Access viewer does not let you view MDB files, only 'snapshots' generated by a full copy of Access.

Although it looks as if you can get viewers for earlier versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, in reality you only need a viewer for current versions. These viewers are backwards compatible and capable of reading the older documents.