Modernize your Office Files. You won’t thank me later.

WHAT

Here we go again (I thought this was behind us … but alas, it is most certainly not).

Teams is hot. SharePoint is back and folks are throwing their Word, Excel and PowerPoint files (modern or not) into Teams because everyone is stuck at home and embracing (rapidly), the “Cloud”).

Key Message: Make sure those files are modern!

SO WHAT

Background: In 2006, Microsoft Office 2007 arrived. And with it also came a modern (“open”) way of working with Office files including Word (.docx), Excel (.xslx) and PowerPoint (.pptx).

This was an important milestone and major change in technology as it allowed for files to work across other platforms (such as Google docs and other vendors for more open collaboration) but also paved the way for things like WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning … i.e. exchanging and collaborating on files in the Cloud) which has enabled so many amazing technology and productivity enhancements such as co-authoring (multiple people working on a file at once), minimal downloads (delta changes in files for sharing/downloading vs the whole/large file every time), and all sorts of enhancements that continue to arrive as the Cloud evolves and improves (agility and telemetry).

NOW WHAT

Unfortunately, so many files have been copied … and copied again as they were the original ‘template’ of a key business document. What is important is that going forward (at a minimum), converting that template to a modern file (.doc to .docx for example) will start paving the way towards everything working in harmony in the office and across teams of users.

So… if you have an old .doc file or .xls or .ppt file you are STILL interacting with.

1. Open it.
2. Save it as a modern file type (.docx, xslx or pptx)
3. Continue using THAT file going forward and bring harmony to your office.

You (won’t, because you’ll forget) thank me later. ?