It depends what you mean by share. There have been three versions of Visio
since Visio 5; Visio 2000, Visio 2002 and Visio 2003. The file format
changed when Visio 2000 and Visio 2003 wee released. Since Visio has always
been able to save as the previous format. You will first need to save as
Visio 2000/2002 format and then use a copy of Visio 2002 or Visio 2000 to
save in Visio 5 format. With each save there is a potential for lose of
information due to changes in the file format. Features that were added to
Visio 2003 may not exist in Visio 2002/2000 so information in the drawing
may be lost if the newer features were used.

If the purpose is for the Visio 5 users is just to have the ability to look
at the drawings, there is a free Visio viewer that can be installed on their
machines. This does not prevent you from receiving drawings from them and
upgrading the drawings to Visio 2003, just they can not open anything you
modify or create.

There is also a question of upgrading, but Visio 5 no longer qualifies for
the upgrade program. If they are happy with Visio 5 and can work around the
issue of working with a Visio 2003 user, they need not upgrade. I still use
a copy of Visio 3 for quick and dirty drawings because it is installed on a
subnotebook that is half the size of a notebook and only slighlty bigger
than a PDA. Unfortunately, Windows 3.1 is burnt on to a chip and can not be
upgraded. ;-)

John... Visio MVP

Need stencils or ideas? http://www.mvps.org/visio/3rdparty.htm
Need VBA examples? http://www.mvps.org/visio/VBA.htm
Common Visio Questions http://www.mvps.org/visio/common_questions.htm
"ModelT45" wrote in message
...
I share Visio 2003 files with folks who have Visio 5. Is there a method to
save the files so they can open them?