Take a peek at Word 2011 for Mac’s compatibility preferences by way of choosing Word→Preferences→Compatibility. The Compatibility preferences dialog for Word in Office 2011 lists a wide variety of specific behaviors of the application that have changed over the years. Turn specific behaviors on and off here, such as the following:
- Font Substitution: If you open a document that used a font that isn’t available on your computer, Word substitutes a font that you do have for the font that you don’t have. If you’d rather choose the font, click the Font Substitution button and then choose the font you want.
- Recommended Options For: This pop-up menu has preconfigured combinations of settings from the behavior options. You can change Word 2011 to behave like older versions of Word or even WordPerfect.
- Options: Hdr projects professional 7 235. You can turn individual Word behaviors on and off in this list by selecting or deselecting check boxes. The choices are eclectic. As you make choices, the Recommended Options For pop-up button changes to let you know which set an individual choice you check belongs to.
- Default: Click this button to use the settings you’ve made as the default behavior for Word from now on. If you click this button, you must allow the Normal.dotm template to be modified in order to permanently change Word’s behavior.
- Compatibility Report: In this section, select the Check Documents for Compatibility check box to activate the Compatibility Report feature. Click the Reset Ignored Issues button to tell the compatibility checker to recheck the entire document and also flag problems you had previously told it to ignore. Click Reset All Issues button to tell compatibility checker to recheck all documents for incompatibilities even if you told the checker to never check for errors again.
If you want to check whether a document is compatible with other versions of Word, choose Toolbox→Compatibility Report.
In the screenshot above, the document is in Word 2010 Compatibility Mode, which likely means it was created by Word 2010. How to Update a Document and Leave Compatibility Mode. To get a document out of Compatibility Mode, open it in the appropriate Office application and click File Info Convert. Say for example you had Word 2007 then decided to install Word 2013. New documents on Word 2013 will be created in compatibility mode. This is because the more recent version of Word is using an older template from the previous or an existing prior version to create the new documents. I am formatting a document in Word for Mac 2016 as a rich text file. Drive 1 3. However, every time I save this document as a rich text file (rtf) it appears as in text file format and the formatting is destroyed. The words 'compatibility mode' pop up at the end of the file.
A common Microsoft Word issue is when every new document is created in compatibility mode. This is readily viewable as Word appends [Compatibility Mode] next to the document name in the title bar.
It seems this is caused by older versions of MS Word that were either previously installed or that still exist in ones system. Say for example you had Word 2007 then decided to install Word 2013. New documents on Word 2013 will be created in compatibility mode.
This is because the more recent version of Word is using an older template from the previous or an existing prior version to create the new documents. To resolve this issue, the older template has to be updated to a newer template that corresponds with the current installation.
Stop New Documents From Being Created in Compatibility Mode
Compatibility Mode in Word 2013 Document |
- This will work on all newer versions of Word (2007, 2010, 2013 & 2016) and applies to users running Windows Vista or later
1. Exit Word if it’s running
2. Launch the Run dialog using Win Key + R. Type %appdata% and press Enter. Alternatively, you can just open the “roaming” folder by following this path:
where C is the Windows Partition and username is your Window’s account username.
Mac Word Compatibility Mode X
3. In the roaming folder open the Microsoft folder then Templates
4. In the Templates folder find a file called Normal.dotm and rename it to something you like, for instance OldNormal.dotm or just delete if you know you won’t need to rollback to this template.
- Note: If you don’t have extensions enabled in Windows Explorer, the file in question appears as Normal in which case you should rename it to something like OldNormal.
Mac Word Compatibility Mode Keyboard
5. That’s it. Word shouldn’t create documents in compatibility mode anymore.
Compatibility Mode On Mac
If you’ve problems following any of the steps, please refer to the youtube video I’ve embedded at the start of the steps. A subscribe to this blog’s channel would be much appreciated.