Help! A Word file seems corrupted!

[Joe McGuire]

Help! I received a doctor's report as a Word file 2-3 weeks ago. It worked
fine then. Now that I e-mailed it to another doctor (Doctor #2) yesterday
(without trying to open it) I see that something went wrong in the interim.
Neither of us can open it! When I click to open it I get a Word "File
Conversion" window filled with garbage characters. This is the same screen
I get when I accidentally try to open a non-Word file, e.g., a pdf file, in
Word . Whether I click Windows default, MS-DOS or Other I get the same
result--a screen of garbage characters. I am using Word 2003 (and Outlook
2003). I need to get a readable copy ASAP to Doctor #2. I can probably get
the original sender to re-send it again, but not until Monday, which will be
too late! This thing started as a Word file (I have no idea of the version)
but it obviously got corrupted somehow in my computer!

 

[Joe McGuire]

Wait--I think I found the problem. I now realize that the document I got
was a *.docx file, which I had opened from Outlook and read but probably did
not save using Word 2003. Instead I probably saved it directly from OL
which means it was saved as a Word 2007 file. I thought I had downloaded
some sort of Micrososft Word thing that allowed me to open and work with
Word 2007 docs but obvoiusly it either went missing or doesn't work. In any
event I found the original e-mail, opened the *.docx attachment and then
saved it as a *.doc file. I can open THAT file with no problem.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Odd, though, that the converter would kick in when you open the file as an
attachment but not when you open it in Word directly. Still, converting it
to .doc is probably the best solution, since there's no guarantee that MD#2
would be able to open a .docx file.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Graham Mayor]

The converter will kick in if the *template* on which the document is based
was a Word template, but the document should still open
http://www.gmayor.com/Problems_opening_2007_docs.htm

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Graham Mayor]

That should have read "if the *template* on which the document is based was
a Word *2007* template" (

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Joe McGuire]

Hmmm. I expect I would have no way to know what template the author used
unless I asked him. Unless Word is somehow using one of my *templates*
which, of course, are all Word 2003, mainly normal.dot I would think.
Anyway, this is the first time I have run into this. Next time I will know
the work-around. Unless the next time is so far off I'll have forgotten!

Thanks to you and Ms. Barnhill for your help to me here and to countless
others!