Word 2003 format problems

I need to share my documents with people that have requested the
documents are in format "Word 97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF Document".

In Word 2003 I have set the options as follows:-
Options...Save tab...Default format: Word 97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF
(*.doc)

When saving documents I also select File...Save As... and select "Word
97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF (*.doc)". When I then check the
File...Properties it shows as "Word 97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF Document".
So far so good.

However, when I then re-open the same document in Word 2003 it
converts it to format "Rich Text Format Document". I used to get the
File Convert prompt dialog which used to identify the file as an RTF
document. I've switched the prompt off now. In both cases when I save
the file using CTRL-S the document gets saves as format "Rich Text
Format Document" and not the original "Word 97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF
Document".

It seems that Word 2003 is automatically converting my backwards
compatible file into a (much larger) RTF file, which the other people
sharing my document understandably object to due to larger file size
and longer transmission times.

Is there any way I can force Word2003 to open, edit and save a "Word
97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF (*.doc)" file in that same format all the time?

"Word 97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF Document" produces an RTF format file? Tests
here show the files to be indentical in size with a file produced by the RTF
filter. I also have the old Word 6 and Word for DOS filters (you can
download them from my web site) which produce smaller files, but which will
cause problems with some recent documents (and throw a security warning
when used to save, which you can ignore but not eliminate). RTF format files
are larger than DOC files, especially where the document contains graphics.

Word always converts documents to its internal format for editing.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
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Gargoyle wrote:
> I need to share my documents with people that have requested the
> documents are in format "".
>
> In Word 2003 I have set the options as follows:-
> Options...Save tab...Default format: Word 97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF
> (*.doc)
>
> When saving documents I also select File...Save As... and select "Word
> 97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF (*.doc)". When I then check the
> File...Properties it shows as "Word 97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF Document".
> So far so good.
>
> However, when I then re-open the same document in Word 2003 it
> converts it to format "Rich Text Format Document". I used to get the
> File Convert prompt dialog which used to identify the file as an RTF
> document. I've switched the prompt off now. In both cases when I save
> the file using CTRL-S the document gets saves as format "Rich Text
> Format Document" and not the original "Word 97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF
> Document".
>
> It seems that Word 2003 is automatically converting my backwards
> compatible file into a (much larger) RTF file, which the other people
> sharing my document understandably object to due to larger file size
> and longer transmission times.
>
> Is there any way I can force Word2003 to open, edit and save a "Word
> 97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF (*.doc)" file in that same format all the time?