Cannot open Word 2003 files on my new iMac using Word:mac 2004

[queue_ball]

I have just returned to MacWorld after a 12-year hiatus. My new iMac
has been deployed with Tiger and with Office:mac 2004, and all
available updates have been installed. It's beautiful, except that I
have 4 years of Office 2003 documents on a Maxtor USB external HDD
that I need to be able to edit further.

Good When I e-mail new Word:mac files to my XP colleagues, they
have no problem at all opening the files and working with them within
Word 2003.

Bad When I bring in a Word 2003 file attachment e-mailed from
my old XP box and copy it to the iMac desktop, or when I use the
Finder to access a Word 2003 document on the Maxtor USB HDD, and then
try to open it, I get an error:

"Word cannot open this document. The document might be in use or
might not be a valid Word document."

I've tried this on a number of files that I know were created and
saved in Word 2003 format, so it was supposed to be a seamless
transition. Alas, I'm missing something, or my OS X has a "feature."
Any ideas?

Thanks,

qb

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi qb,

Word 2003 uses the same file format as Word 2004 (and all versions back to
97) so you should not be having a problem.

First, you say you're copying the Word 2003-created document to the Mac
desktop and I'm not sure what you mean by that. What you want to do is
*save* it to your desktop. That might be what you're doing but I'm not sure
from the way you stated it.

Secondly, how have you tried opening the file? I assume you double-clicked
on it? See if using File>Open from within Word makes a difference.

If none of this helps, post back. It's also possible that you're dealing
with corrupt files and we can work around that as well.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
My Site: <http://www.bethrosengard.com>

 

[queue_ball]

John and Beth, thanks for your help. I've tried lots of different
things, and some files that people send me work OK. But here's an
example that's got me flummoxed. My boss' secretary, who uses Word
2003 for Windows, sends me a file attachment that I cannot open, and I
cannot open it after I save to my Mac Desktop.

So I go to my old WinXP machine, save the attachment to that Desktop,
open it in Word 2003 (yes, all MS Office updates installed), save it
as a new filename on the Desktop, then e-mail it to myself...hop over
to my iMac, fire up Entourage (IMAP to our Novell GroupWise Mail
Server), save the new attachment to the Mac Desktop, and try to open
it there...no dice.

But when my secretary, who also runs Word 2003, sends me one of her
new documents, I can open it just fine.

Now. I just noticed that my MIME encoding on my GroupWise client for
WinXP was set to UTF-8. Should I change it to Windows Default, or ISO
default?

Instead of double-clicking the Desktop icon for one such file, I tried
File>Open from Word:mac 2004, but to no avail.

Thanks again. This is really odd.

qb

 

[queue_ball]

BTW, I just saved another file to Mac Desktop as an RTF, then closed
Entourage to release whatever stingers remained in the file, and still
no go. It's not just that it complains about content; it says it
cannot open the file at all.

qb

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Ah! There's the magic work: "Novell GroupWise Mail Server".

Novel mail servers don't handle the two-form Macintosh file types correctly.
Look around in the email and chances are you will see that the file is in
two parts, the ".dat" that contains the data, and the ".frk" that contains
the resource fork. Word needs only the ".dat" which actually contains the
data: but if only the .frk is arriving, you don't actually have the
document, only the icon

An easy way to get around this is to Zip the document before emailing it.
When you save and then unzip the email attachment, it should work.

Sorry: Things often don't work very well with Novell stuff. They "can",
but that requires the system administrator to set up GroupWise correctly in
the first place, and they usually don't

Email me a small one of your documents and I will be able to tell for sure
what's wrong.

Cheers

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[queue_ball]

John, I think you've got it, by Jove. I WinZipped every file that I
sent myself today from my XP box, and they have all opened
swimmingly. Thanks so much.

BTW, any obvious reason that SOME Word 2003 files (the ones my
secretary sent me yesterday, for example) sent to me through GroupWise
will actually open, and others will not? Is the encoding on the
sender's end that is decisive in this?

Thanks again,

qb

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Yes, it is the encoding. Novel GroupWise often gets that wrong.

A Mac file is in two parts. GroupWise decodes only one part. Unless it is
correctly set up, it sometimes choses the wrong part: the one that does not
contain the data. Word can't open the file unless it gets the data.

The other thing that can affect you is the encoding. Entourage and Word
expect MIME and Base 64, or UUEncode. If you send anything else, your
mileage very definitely will vary, in unpredictable ways

If the sender is using Entourage, they must NOT use "Compress Attachments"
these days. Entourage had an interface to an old version of Stuffit that is
no longer around. If you ask Entourage to compress, it will usually error.
Unfortunately, when it doesn't error, the file it sends is often unreadable
by almost everything

I recommend always compressing Word documents: they are much less likely to
get damaged in transit if you do that. However, I would use the Zip
compression utility built in to Mac OS X for this, then attach the Zipped
file in Entourage. That way, every computer on the planet made this century
can decode and open the result, because they ALL have Zip built in

Cheers

John, I think you've got it, by Jove. I WinZipped every file that I
sent myself today from my XP box, and they have all opened
swimmingly. Thanks so much.

BTW, any obvious reason that SOME Word 2003 files (the ones my
secretary sent me yesterday, for example) sent to me through GroupWise
will actually open, and others will not? Is the encoding on the
sender's end that is decisive in this?

Thanks again,

qb

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410