Microsoft created a migration kit that includes a utility that will convert many older Office 2003 documents at once. The tool was created for technology administrators, but anyone can download and use it.

To get started, download and install the Office compatibility pack from Microsoft. Once that is installed, download and install Microsoft’s Migration Planning Manager. You will need to create a folder for the installation of the latter program.

Once the Migration Planning Manager has been installed, go to the Tools subfolder under the folder in which you installed Migration Planning Manager. Locate the “ofc.ini” file, and open it with a text editor such as Notepad. Once the file is up on your screen, locate the [FoldersToConvert] section, and remove the semicolon before the line that reads “fldr=C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents.” Removing the semicolon makes that line active. Before you save the file, however, delete everything after “fldr=” and insert the drive and folder where you keep the documents you want to convert. For example, if you copy the documents you wish to convert to c:\convert, then you should type c:\convert after the “fldr=” prefix. The entire line should look like this: fldr=c:\convert.

Once you’ve done that, save the file. Then, from the same folder in which ofc.ini is stored, double-click the file ofc.exe. If you completed the ofc.ini file correctly, you should see “converted” status messages from the ofc.exe program as it converts your files. Once the conversion is finished, you will find your converted files in a “Converted” subfolder under the folder in which the original (Office 2003) files were stored.

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