Benefits of saving in open formats
Saving documents as open formats ensures that:
- documents can be accessed easily by all users
- there is no need to go back and 'fix' the document to make it accessible at a later date
- only one version of the document is required
Setting open formats as the default option in Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office products are set by default to save in Microsoft Word (.DOC), Excel (.XLS) or PowerPoint (.PPT) formats.
But this can be changed so that they save in open formats by default.
Set Word documents to save as open documents (.odt)
Click File to bring up the menu, and then select Options at the bottom of the panel.
In the Options menu, select Save.
Then where it says Save files in that format, select OpenDocument Text (odt).
Word will now save in ODT format automatically.
If you want to save a document in Word format (.DOC) in the future, you will need to select Save As Type... and then choose Word Document as the format.
Set Excel spreadsheets to save in the open format (.ods)
Click File to open the menu, and then select Options at the bottom of the panel.
In the Options menu, select Save.
Where it says Save files in that format, please select 'OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods)'.
Excel will now save in ODS format automatically.
If you want to save a spreadsheet in Excel format (.xls) in the future, select Save As Type... and then choose 'Excel Workbook' as the format.
Resources
Microsoft guidance on how to save a PowerPoint in OpenDocument Presentation (.odp) format.