Office 2007 File Types (Clever Capitalism)

Microsoft's insistance on playing Were's Waldo with its menu items really out did itself with Office 2007. Some of the standard stuff is under the fancy icon in the upper left.

Especially important is the options menu. (Word and Excel)
This is were you will determine the default file type for saving files. Change this to the types used by mortal humans. If you want anything and everything to read the file use RTF.


Edit:
Novice users do not know about file extensions because Windows defaults to hide file extensions. Do yourself a favor and uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types" in Control Panel > Folder Options > View. This will help you understand what is going on with file types.

5 ways to open docx files

Or:

Just use Google Documents but it will save in .doc/.xls format (a good thing in most cases).

Wordpad handles .docx also, just type wordpad in the start menu. Wordpad will not save the .docx as .doc but choosing .rtf is good.

Some educational institutions require docx which is a good way to sell software and partner with Microsoft's revenue stream. So much for fighting ugly capitalism in academia.

Edit: Office 2010 instructions for changing docx save to doc: