cannot open .docx files---and I have Office 2007

[zooeyhallne]

Can anyone advise on why a user cannot open a .docx file he receives in an
email, and yet he has Office 2007?

It brings up an error message that says in effect it cannot read the file.

I know that .docx is the Office 2007 default format, and that a converter is
needed if you are trying to open it with an earlier version of Office.
However this user already has Office 2007 installed.

This has happened for two users in my company so far. Would appreciate any
help and advice!

I posted this also in the Office--> General forum.

 

[Stefan Blom]

The document could be damaged. Ask the sender to send the attachment again.

 

[zooeyhallne]

Stefan:

Thanks for the reply. However this is happening on multiple files (received
through email), and this is second computer at my organization to do this.

 

[Stefan Blom]

But you are saying that it only affects documents sent via email?

Does it make a difference if you ask the user to save the documents to the
hard disk and open them from there?

 

[zooeyhallne]

No difference. I have tried saving the file to the local disk and opening
them from there but still get the error.

 

[Yves Dhondt]

I guess the first thing you have to do is figure out if the problem is with
the document or with Word.

Ask the user to save the document to his disc and then change the extension
from "docx" to "zip". Let him open the zip package with whatever zip
software he uses (e.g. the built-in Windows one). If he can't open the zip
file, then the document is corrupt and the corruption must have happened
during the mailing process.

Ask the user to save the document to his disc and then mail that copy back
to you (or deliver it on a memory stick). Can you still open that copy on
your computer. If not, then the document must have been corrupted during the
mailing process.

If the above two things work, then it looks like something might be wrong
with the copy of Word installed on those machines. You might try diagnostics
or repair to see if that helps. If they don't, you might want to check the
mail program the user is using.

Yves

 

[zooeyhallne]

Thanks for the reply. I had the user email me a copy of the file, and I am
able to open it just fine in my Word 2003 (I have the Compatability fix
installed on my pc, and it converts the file before opening it).

We are both using Outlook for email.

The user has no problems with creating Word 2007 files, just cannot open
them from others in an email. And like I said, this is the second pc to
exhibit this problem.