Saving Files for Other Versions of Word and Other Word Processors
Formatted citations are Word "fields" specific to the version of Word that created them and the other compatible versions (Microsoft Word 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, or Office 365).
If you open your document with a different version of Word, or use the Save As command to save a formatted copy of your paper in another format, you may lose the ability to format citations in that document.
If you plan to use your document with a different word processor or an earlier version of Microsoft Word, you should either Unformat Citations or Remove Field Codes (Convert to Plain Text) from the Word file before converting the document to the other file format.
- Unformatting Citations: Unformatted citations are regular text; however, they are temporary placeholders that do not reflect final output. See Unformatting Citations in Microsoft Word. You may be able to unformat citations, save the document as an RTF file, and use Format Paper with the original library the citations came from to format citations from these placeholders. Because Format Paper has no travelling library, the record numbers for the unformatted citations must match the record numbers in the library. See Basic Instructions for Using Format Paper for information on using Format Paper.
- Removing Field Codes: When you remove field codes, you save a copy of the document and convert formatted fields to regular formatted text. Graphics are no longer linked, but are saved as though you had used the Copy and Paste commands. The copy reflects final, formatted output, but you cannot reformat later. See Removing Field Codes.
For information about using your Word document with OpenOffice.org Writer, see Moving Documents between Microsoft Word and Writer.