Document variables - text changes to asian characters when updated

[Donna S.]

Hello,
We are using Word 2007 SP1 on Windows XP with SP 3.
The problem we've been having lately is random but has happened numerous
times ...

Text that is generated from a document variable, when updated or file saved,
will change to asian characters. Not ALL document variables in that document
will be affected. Most commonly we have seen this happening in headers and
footers.

These documents are based on a template, however today we received a call
from a colleague who has no access to our templates or macros and they are
experiencing the same problem. They are not on a network drive or anything
like that...

Any ideas what is causing this and how to resolve it?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

There was a hotfix before SP2 that was rolled up into SP2 that caused this
problem and now a hotfix has been released that fixes it and a number of
things that were broken by SP2.

That hotfix can be obtained from

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;970942&sd=rss&spid=11377

I am not sure however if you will have to first install SP2 to take
advantage of this.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com

 

[Donna S.]

Thanks for the suggestion Doug - I hadn't yet installed SP2, so I started by
doing that and the problem still existed. Next I downloaded and installed the
hotfix that you mentioned. It also did not solve the problem.

We have been trying to isolate teh cause of the problem and further
experiments has revealed that this only happens when the document is saved as
a docm or docx, as well as a dotm or dotx -- which tells me it's obviously
got something to do with the macros that are attached to the template. It
also seems to only happen when fields are updated -- which of course happens
automatically when we run the fill-in form to populate the document
variables.

I wondered if it could be a virus or a macro virus, but 2 different scanners
come up with negative results (McAfee and Avast).

Any other ideas? At this point we'd be more than happy to pay to have this
solved, whether its by Microsoft Tech support or whether one of our MVPs is
able to take a closer look at the file and the VB and macros that are
involved.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Donna

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Hi Donna,

If you want to send me a copy of the template from which the documents are
created, I will see if I can find out what is going on.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com