Mac Office 2004 working with Office on WinXP

[Peter LaMotte]

I have just started business school and most people here are using Office on
new IBM thinkpads installed with Office. I have run into a problem where all
the files (so far Office and Powerpoint) are not recognized by my version of
Office 2004 (for OSX). Has anyone run into this problem? I know they are
just using the basic version of Office on Windows and not doing anything
fancy, I have to think they should be compatible.

-Just to clear up any questions they sent a file with a .doc ending so that
should be it.
- And also when they sent it using an older version on Office in thier "Save
As" menu, it seemed to open just fine.

Thanks for you help
Peter

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I have just started business school and most people here are using Office on
new IBM thinkpads installed with Office. I have run into a problem where all
the files (so far Office and Powerpoint) are not recognized by my version of
Office 2004 (for OSX). Has anyone run into this problem? I know they are
just using the basic version of Office on Windows and not doing anything
fancy, I have to think they should be compatible.

-Just to clear up any questions they sent a file with a .doc ending so that
should be it.
- And also when they sent it using an older version on Office in thier "Save
As" menu, it seemed to open just fine.

WinOffice97/00/02/03 and MacOffice98/01/v.X/04 share identical file
formats, so a file created on one will be readable by any of them.

A couple of things to check, depending on what you mean by "recognized".

1) If you mean that you can't open the file by double-clicking on its
icon, but *can* open it by using File/Open, or by dragging the file icon
onto the open Office app's icon on the dock, you need to fix your file
associations. Select a Word doc, for example, in the Finder. Choose
File/Get Info. In the Open With pane, choose Word, then click Change All.

2) If you mean that you can't open the file using File/Open, do you get
an error message?

3) Are the others using Office 2003 and using Digital Rights Management
to protect the files? If so, MacOffice 2004 can't authenticate, so
they'll have to send them to you unprotected (however, if that was the
case, you should have gotten an error message to that effect).

 

[peterlamotte]

RESPONSES BELOW::::

1) If you mean that you can't open the file by double-clicking on its
icon, but *can* open it by using File/Open, or by dragging the file icon
onto the open Office app's icon on the dock, you need to fix your file
associations. Select a Word doc, for example, in the Finder. Choose
File/Get Info. In the Open With pane, choose Word, then click Change All.

Nope that is not the problem, it is assigned correctly.... see below

2) If you mean that you can't open the file using File/Open, do you get
an error message?

Bingo! Whether its by double clicking, dragging, or the Open menu from
within the App. I get the following error;

"Word cannot open this document. The Document might be in use or might
not be a valid Word document. (Filename.doc)"

I have had this happen with Powerpoint too. All file are orginating from
Windows XP machines running the latest version of Office.

3) Are the others using Office 2003 and using Digital Rights Management
to protect the files? If so, MacOffice 2004 can't authenticate, so
they'll have to send them to you unprotected (however, if that was the
case, you should have gotten an error message to that effect).
.

I doubt that they are using DRM, these are primarily non-tech savy students
who are just using what the school preloaded office is set to.

Thanks for your help.

 

[peterlamotte]

Here is another interesting thing I just discovered. It only happens with the
new version of Mac Office 2004. I just tried it on my home system that has
Office X and it opened fine... problem is... I don't have those istall CDs
anymore.

But could this help answer some questions to my issue?

 

[plamotte]

I discovered the root of the problem. It was entourage. For whatever
reason, AND SUGGESTIONS ARE APPRECIATED, Entourage was making the
word and powerpoint files unreadable. I know this b/c when I downloaded
the same file via the web access to my email the file was fine. So I will post
a question in the Entourage folder, but if you know and reason why it would
corrupt a file please let me know.