I was recently handed the task of updating some systems for a restaurant and realized that they are running MS office 1997. Not a bad thing, but the owner wants me to upgrade them to the most current version and I am worried about the compatability between them. Can word 2007 open/convert these old files? If not, what do I do? There are a few hundred word files scattered all over the system and it would take forever to find/retype them all. Any suggestions?

if u're using word 2007, copy one of the files over and see whether u can open the file...

Office 2007 should be able to open nearly any document (some documents with embedded vbscripts might have compatibility issues) created with any version of office from 97-2007