Theoretically, documents created in Word 97 through Word 2003 use the same
file format and are both backward- and forward-compatible. In actuality,
some copies of some versions have problems opening some documents created in
earlier or later versions, but this is usually caused by outside factors
rather than anything intrinsic to Word.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
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"jennifer" wrote in message
...
Are there any formatting differences in viewing documents in Word 2003 SP1
that were created in Word 2002 in Office XP? Can newer versions of
Microsoft
Office software always view correctly documents created in older versions?