[ms office - 2016] Word 2016 - Some Files Not Opening in Compatibility Mode

[LewisMahon]

I am currently trialing Windows 10 with some members of staff around school, and I have come across a problem with Word 2016. We currently use Office 2010 on W7 machines throughout school, so the majority of resources have been created on that. Some of the staff have reported problems when printing resources or letters that they have previously created, where it will not print how it is shown in the program or in the print preview. I have noticed that this is when a document does not open in Compatibility Mode. I have searched for ways to force Word to open in Compatibility Mode, but all of the threads and articles I find are for disabling Compatibility Mode. I also found this fix on TechNet which does work, however I do not want to do this for each document and each user that comes across this problem. Saving as a PDF also has the same issue, so I can't get around it that way.

 

This is the only thing stopping me from rolling out Windows 10 to the rest of the school, so I would greatly appreciate any help with this! Hopefully one of you has come across this before, although Office 2010 to 2016 probably isn't a common jump that is made.

 

Thanks

[jmak]

First of all, apologies for not directly answering your question.

 

I think your users might need to put up with some pain while you continue to work on prioritising keeping your network secure.

 

W7 is no longer getting security updates. You need to get off that straight away.

 

As a temporary work around, have you tested Office 2010 on Windows 10? It would make sense to change to a more current version of Office at the same time as you update Windows, but your priority should be network security.

 

Also, docx has been the standard format for 13 years and certainly anything created since you installed Office 2010 should be in docx format. I'd question why they're still working on documents that were created so long ago. Tell them it's an opportunity to produce something more relevant.

 

Office 2010 will also go out of support on 13th October this year. I did move from 2010 to 2016 without problems... in 2016. I would question why you're not moving to office 2019 at this point.

 

To reiterate, get rid of W7 now!

Edited February 29, 2020 by jmak

[free780]

Or even Office 365 Proplus.

[ticktock]

If you are running sims office 2019 isn't supported until summer. I think everyone is aware now of the need to move from W7. Some of us are a tad behind due to under resourcing (and redundancies), but we will get there!

[psydii]

We’ve been on targeted / monthly / current branch for several years. There haven’t been any sims compatibility issues that we’ve noticed.

[ticktock]

Just office 2019 not supported by Capita

 

http://www.capitaess.co.uk/home/TechnicalRoadmap-May-2019.pdf

[mukz]

The only suggestion i have here thats not been said is that if you have any software such as compass which is the exams for MOS etc then stick to semi annual channel whatever you do as it helps with compatibility across external exam delivery software - hope that makes sense

[LewisMahon]

Thanks for all of the replies. We are well aware of the need to leave W7, but we have had a lot of setbacks over the past couple of years. I thought about putting the users back on Office 2010, but I really wanted to stay away from this as it would be a hassle to upgrade to 2016 afterwards if the whole school is still on 2010. I also don't want to go with ProPlus as I'd like to license it per machine, which is much much easier with 2016.