Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Setting a Default Document Format.

Setting a Default Document Format

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 6, 2018)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


2

Normally, Word saves your documents in what is known as Word format. Technically, this means different things for different versions of Word. One simple way of looking at it, however, is that it means your documents are stored in a peculiar way that is understood by your version of Word, but may not be understood 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. Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
  2. Make sure the Save tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)
  3. Figure 1. The Save tab of the Options dialog box.

  4. Use the Save Word Files As drop-down list to select a default file format.
  5. Click on OK.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1253) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Setting a Default Document Format.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is five more than 3?

2021-02-03 16:36:59

AQ

I cannot get my saved word document to show when I open it, I keep getting the

File conversion box :
telling me to select the encoding that makes your document readable.
Text Encoding

Options given are: Windows ( default) MS-DOS and Other encoding.

When I choose Windows 9 Default) it give me Western European Windows, but I still see unreadable text in the Preview section.

When I go to Other Encoding it gives me Western European it still do not work

I have been trying since two days to get this corrected so I can forward my documents to the company and I am unable to do so.
Please assist


2019-06-13 13:45:01

Trouble

What about the default for simply *opening* a document? Like if I wanted to change the default to "All Files"?


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