Cannot open Word Documents

[551heyd]

I am using an ibookG4 with Office for Mac 2004, updated regularly. I
have several Word documents which bring up this error message when I
try to open them: "Word cannot open this document. This document
might be in use or might not be a valid word document". They aren't
in use currently that I am aware of, and they are word documents and
appear with the word icon and everything. Any suggestions on how to
rescue these documents?

 

[Jiwoong]

I'm having exactly the same problem and I am not able to open several
very important documents.
Would greatly appreciate if somebody could help!
Thanks.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Both of you:

I am afraid that error message is usually the kiss of death.

First: Re-boot your computer. It may be that a file system error has
caused the system to think that the document is already open when it is not.

It may also be worth setting your Wordreferences>"Always make backup copy"
to ON. This resolves an issue where Word can't open the document because it
thinks it is already open. When it attempts to open, it will create the
document as a backup copy and break the deadlock.

You should also ensure that you have the Microsoft Office Open XML File
Format Converter for Mac installed. It's a free download from
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx

It may be that people are sending you Word 2007/8 XML-format documents. The
converter will enable you to read and write such documents.

But USUALLY, it means that the document has become so corrupted that Word
cannot open it.

In Word, go to File>Open and and set the "Enable" drop-down to "Recover Text
from any File". That will dig the text out of the file if it can. You will
lose all the formatting, and anything in the file that is not text.

WARNING: When you have finished, use File>Open and set that drop-down back
to "All Word Documents", otherwise all your documents will be opened in
stripped-down format.

Hope this helps

I'm having exactly the same problem and I am not able to open several
very important documents.
Would greatly appreciate if somebody could help!
Thanks.

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John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]