Technodemia

Support for uploading .docx and .xlsx files in Google Docs

One of the questions with new software in a school environment, or even a corporate one, is how long do you wait before you upgrade?  With the 2007 and 2008 release of Microsoft Office System 2007 for Windows and 2008 for OSX respectively came the introduction of the .docx and .xlsx.  This was probably the first time a lot of students became aware of file types.  The most common issue in a school environment that surfaces was files saved using the new file extension and trying to be opened in older versions of Office that by default didn’t support  this file types.  The standard solution, at least my solution, was tell the student go back to a machine that had that version of Office installed and re-save the file to .doc for Word documents, or .xls for Excel spreadsheets, and explain files types to them (prime teachable moment).  Yes, I’m aware of the compatibility pack for Office that Microsoft has, but that is only for Windows machines.  As I write this post there is still no compatibility pack for Office 2008 (Mac version of Office).  Yes, I am also aware of services that do the conversion for you, but I have never been comfortable with most of the offerings.

Once again here is Google Docs to save the day.  Google has announced at the beginning of this month that they now support .docx and .xlsx files.  I should say more specifically that Google Docs now supports the uploading of these files types in addition to all the other file types you can already upload.  Now there is no longer the need to get to another machine with the newest office.  Just upload that .docx document or .xlsx document,  open it up and work on it in the clouds or export it to a .doc file or .xls file.  Now if only Google can reduce my daily commute.

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