[fryke]

On the other hand, MS has used the same .doc file standard for a long time. Who are we to tell them they should stick to the things we called trash when they started dominating the world with them? Seeing how Microsoft _won't_ just disappear from the face of the Earth, I'd rather see them move on and innovate on some fronts. While I'm not entirely sure whether the .docx format will actually bring much benefit to people who use Office for work, I'd say it's really easy to solve the problem:

Send the file back and demand .doc or .rtf OR
use the - albeit complicated, big and unfinished - converter or OpenOffice.org.