My sister-in-law (SIL) is working on her Master's and she had to submit a PowerPoint for one of her professors. She created it in Office 2007. If you try to open it in a previous version it won't open without downloading the compatibility pack found here.
The professor responded to her first email with "I can't open the file. It says it isn't compatible with my version of Office. Please resend it in a compatible format."

I was contacted and asked how she could do this. I gave her the link to send to the professor. After sending this link, the professor replied, "I don't have time to install the compatibility software. You need to recreate the PowerPoint in a compatible version." Well, my SIL only has Office 2007.

I easily opened the ppt in Office '03 and saved it in that format but my question is why should it be the responsibility of the student to format a document in an older version of software simply because the professor "doesn't have time" (which only took me about 3 minutes, btw)?

Dan (DWallach), you're a professor. Is this a typical response or simply a professor being hard to deal with?