Viewing an Eagle schematic and PCB layout in an earlier version of Eagle?

[treez]

Hello,
I use Eagle Pro 6.5.0 (cost £900) on my computer.

A junior engineer has layed out a prototype PCB in the free version of Eagle (7.1.0).
I now need to evaluate his work and tidy it up. Is it possible to view & edit his schematic and pcb in my Eagle version 6.5.0?….or do I have to download the free version 7.1.0 in order to look at his work and edit it?

(I heard a rumour that if one loads the latest version of Eagle onto your PCB, it invalidates and puts a “virus” into any previous version of eagle that one has, and renders all the libraries forever unuseable in the previous version of Eagle…is this true?

 

[ysba]

There's a problem between Eagle versions 5 and 6. In version 5, a binary file format was used. In version 6, it was updated to a XML format, so they are totally incompatible (all three files: sch, brd and lbr). So if you open a version 5 file in version 6, and save it, you'll not be able to open it again in version 5.

The same doesn't happen between versions 6 and 7. If you open a version 7 file in version 6, some error will appear, but you can view the file.

Also, you could install version 7 along version 6 only to see designs from other people, but you'll have to ensure version 6 as the default program for Eagle files so you do not mess with your version 6 files every time you open one.