Hi DK8220 and all!

I discovered a work-around that will allow an MS Office 2003 user to open up embedded MS Office 2007 or 2010 objects (e.g. docx, xlsx, pptx) from within original MS Office 2007 or 2010 documents using the MS Converter and a simple trick about the document format.

The 2007 and 2010 formats are simply compressed XML documents. As a result, the work around involves a simple process:

Step 1) save a copy of the original, un-opened 2007 or 2010 document to work with so you do not mess with the original document.

Step 2) make sure you can see the file extensions of all registered files. You should see your copied document as either a .docx or a .xlsx. or a .pptx, etc.

Step 3) rename your copied document to be a .zip file. The operating system will bark at you with a warning about the file becoming unusable, but just say 'OK' and rename the file.

Step 4) now that the file is a .zip, you can open it up with your favorite uncompress program. This is built-in to windows explorer in most newer OS version, so you should be able to simply double-click it to see the compressed folder contents.

Step 5) locate the folder called 'embeddings' and, therein, you should see the embedded object.

Step 6) copy that object to a location external of the zip file and then you will be able to open up that file directly using MS office converter.

I hope this is helpful.

- Ed Weber
Weber Enterprises, Inc.