Office Mac to Windows Compatibility Issues

[John McGhie]

Yes, sounds like you are indeed sending BinHex format and their email
program is finding and revealing the Resource Fork.

Since the resource fork is not needed on Windows, users will get a little
confused.

As Bob says, you could set your email program to encode in AppleDouble.
Personally, I set mine to "MIME", because any computer can open that, and it
was specifically designed to transfer over the Internet without damage.

Hope this helps

I've been emailing PC users attachments of files created in Word 2004 for
years without incident. But I recently upgraded to Word 2008 and this morning
received my first 'what gives' reply from a poor PC person. They had received
two attachments from me, where I had attached but one .doc 97-2004 document.
They saw one attachment of 384 bytes, which they could not open, and one of
39kb, which they could. No problem as such, but they were confused, and this
is not what we want. It sounds like something I vaguely recall from an older
version of Word/Mac, but is it another indication that all is not well in
compatibility land?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

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]

 

[whitman]

Thanks Bill & John. Should have said: I'm using Mail, not Entourage. Presumably, in this app, I should tick Edit/Attachments/Always Send Windows Friendly Attachments. I rather thought I had, with all those years of trouble-free communication, but it wasn't actually ticked. So I have. Fingers crossed.

 

[John McGhie]

I "hope" that's it. The Help in Mail is very simplistic, so I can't tell
what encoding it's going to use

Thanks Bill & John. Should have said: I'm using Mail, not Entourage.
Presumably, in this app, I should tick Edit/Attachments/Always Send Windows
Friendly Attachments. I rather thought I had, with all those years of
trouble-free communication, but it wasn't actually ticked. So I have. Fingers
crossed.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

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]

 

[Bill Weylock]

Ahhh.... Diabolically clever of you to be talking about Mail in the
Entourage newsgroup! I never would have caught on!

Hope you have solved the problem. My guess is that ³send windows-friendly
attachments² is exactly what you want.


Best,


- Bill

Thanks Bill & John. Should have said: I'm using Mail, not Entourage.
Presumably, in this app, I should tick Edit/Attachments/Always Send Windows
Friendly Attachments. I rather thought I had, with all those years of
trouble-free communication, but it wasn't actually ticked. So I have. Fingers
crossed.

Best,

Bill
Imac 2.8Ghz -10.5.1
Office 2008/2003 - Windows XP Pro SP2

 

[whitman]

John: I'm hoping too! So far so good. Bill: sorry, I was (diabolically or otherwise) talking about Word 08 and what happens to its attachments; I happen to be using Mail to send them, but the point was Word.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Except that, when there are problems emailing Word documents--the
problem is almost *always* in how they are being sent, and rarely in
Word or the document.

 

[TXCiclista]

Can you save a ".docx" file with a ".doc" extension? Surely the true indicator of whether a file is "07/08" is NOT the extension, but coding within the document. Wouldn't both versions of Word be "smart" enough to realize that the ".doc" extension has merely been used for a ".docx" file? I know you could do it with a ".bob" extension if you wanted (or at least you used to be able to).

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Yes. But not by manually changing the extension since, as you indicated,
..doc and .docx are different file types.

Open your .docx file and do a Save As. Choose Word 97-2004 Document (.doc)
from the Format dropdown menu.

--
***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>

 

[John McGhie]

You could play all sorts of games like that, for your private amusement.

But don't do it with a file you expect anyone else to use

The "content" of a .docx file is actually a Zip archive. If you change the
extension, many applications will helpfully "unzip" it for you. If they do,
it's pooched ‹ nothing you can do to get it back without running scripts.

If you do decide to Unzip one and have a look, you will find it actually
contains a mini website.

The content of text is in a pure .txt file.

If you want to have a play, you can produce all sorts of entertaining
results by playing around in there. Just make sure you do not allow Mac OS
X to write a resource fork into the folder. If you do, Word then can't read
it. If you want to play, it's easier to do it from a Windows machine that
doesn't write resource forks.

If you do this then stitch it all back together again, wondrous things are
possible. For example, you can replace all the graphics in a document
without opening it. Or you could jerk the style CSS out and reformat the
document.

But if you want normal users to be able to get .docx files through their
firewall, email, antivirus, antispyware and open in Word, leave the damn
file extensions alone, or you are asking for trouble Most non-desktop
software such as mail servers and aintivirus applications are far to busy to
go looking for content in the file: they will just believe the extension.
If it's wrong, you get strange results that ordinary users will be unable to
cope with.

Hope this helps

Can you save a ".docx" file with a ".doc" extension? Surely the true indicator
of whether a file is "07/08" is NOT the extension, but coding within the
document. Wouldn't both versions of Word be "smart" enough to realize that the
".doc" extension has merely been used for a ".docx" file? I know you could do
it with a ".bob" extension if you wanted (or at least you used to be able to).

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

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]

 

[Bas]

I have the same problems working two ways. From windows to mac and from mac to windows.

The only solution here was saving as word 97-2004(or 2003).

Docx is not really making me happy. This allways goes wrong.

Bas

 

[Anna_bd]

Hello, if anyone can help i'd be eternally grateful.

I've got a document, saved as a .docx file which i am trying to send to my professor. I am sending the file using entourage.

He can't read it on his windows based machine. But interestingly, if i try and read the attachment that i've sent (from the sent-mail) it also doesn't open properly. I get an error that says the file is corrupted. It does open, but a lot of the formating is lost. My professor, on the other hand, can't open it at all.

I have also been having problems opening any word files that have been sent to me, i assumed these files were actually corrupt - but now i think it may be a problem with my entourage settings.

Can anyone help?

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Anna -

Does the prof have a software version that can open .---x files?

In your Mail & News Preferences> Compose make sure that the choice for
encoding is either Any Computer (AppleDouble) *or* Windows (MIME/Base 64).
Also put a check in the box to Append Filename Extensions - and it's a good
idea to stuff/zip files before sending as attachments.

I believe what you're trying to open on your end *isn't* a copy of the
document, but just a shell of what document was attached. If you want to
test send a copy to another of your email addresses, don't attempt to open
it from the Sent Items folder.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[TXCiclista]

For a professor, you should be able to print the file to a PDF (Save to PDF) and e-mail it to him. I know this doesn't fix the issue with opening the docx files, but it ill certainly fix the issue of the prof not being able to read your paper.

 

[Anna_bd]

Thank you. The shell thing seems to make sense actually.

The prof is no longer replying to my emails so i guess i'll find out later if he managed to open it or not.

If he's running an earlier version of Office (before .docx) on Windows would he be able to open it though? Or do i need to change it so it's an .doc instead?

The reason i ask, is when i was using Office 2003 on Windows (not long ago) i *was* able to open .docx files in Word (though these were sent from a Window's word user not a Word:mac user).

Anyways, you've solved one mystery for me so cheers.

Anna

 

[Phillip Jones]

Try the following: before sending make zip archive from Finder of the
document and send that. See what happens.

Hello, if anyone can help i'd be eternally grateful.

I've got a document, saved as a .docx file which i am trying to send to
my professor. I am sending the file using entourage.

He can't read it on his windows based machine. But interestingly, if i
try and read the attachment that i've sent (from the sent-mail) it also
doesn't open properly. I get an error that says the file is corrupted.
It does open, but a lot of the formating is lost. My professor, on the
other hand, can't open it at all.

I have also been having problems opening any word files that have been
sent to me, i assumed these files were actually corrupt - but now i
think it may be a problem with my entourage settings.

Can anyone help?

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[Daiya Mitchell]

If he's running an earlier version of Office (before .docx) on Windows
would he be able to open it though? Or do i need to change it so it's
an .doc instead?

Depends on whether he has installed the update that lets 2003 use .docx
files.

The reason i ask, is when i was using Office 2003 on Windows (not long
ago) i *was* able to open .docx files in Word (though these were sent
from a Window's word user not a Word:mac user).

Whether the .docx was created in MacWord or WindowsWord does not make a
difference.

 

[Barry Wainwright]

If he's running an earlier version of Office (before .docx) on Windows would
he be able to open it though? Or do i need to change it so it's an .doc
instead?

The reason i ask, is when i was using Office 2003 on Windows (not long ago) i
*was* able to open .docx files in Word (though these were sent from a Window's
word user not a Word:mac user).

Users of office 2003 & 2004 will be able to open docx file only IF they have
downloaded and installed the pertinent file translators from the Microsoft
web site.

--
Barry Wainwright
Microsoft MVP (see <http://www.microsoft.com/mvp/> for details)
Visit the Entourage User¹s Weblog for Hints, tips and troubleshooting
information:
http://www.barryw.net/weblog/

 

[AAC]

This compatibility thing is driving me nuts! Can someone help? Seems as if all these posts are in regards to email issues....

I am saving a 224KB document in Word 2004. I open the same file in Windows version of 2003. It opens okay, but the lettering looks fuzzy, however the issue does not stop there. When I save the file in Windows Word 2003, the file jumps to a 5MB file. Can anyone help me?? Thanks.

 

[CyberTaz]

The "fuzzy" appearance may be a font issue depending on what versions of
which fonts were used in the original doc & what is available on the PC
running Office 2003. It's most likely not related to the size increase. If
you stay with the fonts that come with Office it shouldn't be a problem.

If the file contains images - especially if they were in .pict format or if
they were pasted into the document - it might well account for the bloat.
Windows doesn't understand .pict so Word is having to generate a second copy
in order to display them on the PC. When saving it retains *both* copies of
each such image because the one created for Windows won't work on a Mac.
The best way to avoid the problem - on either platform - is to use
appropriate graphics file types (PNG, JPG, TIF) and always use the Insert>
Picture method rather than pasting.

Other factors can influence file size as well, such as Track Changes,
Versions & a plethora of other stuff:

1. Fast Saves: Disable this at on the Save tab of Tools | Options.2. Preview Picture: Clear the check box on the Summary tab of File |
Properties.3. Versions (File | Versions): Make sure "Automatically save version on
close" is not turned on.
4. Revisions (Tools | Track Changes):
5. Keep track of formatting (Tools | Options | Edit). This is reportedly
A major cause of file bloat in Word 2002 and above.6. Embedded True Type fonts (Tools | Options | Save); embedding fonts
should be avoided wherever possible.8. Embedded graphics: When feasible, it is preferable to link the
graphics.9. Embedded objects: These are even worse than ordinary graphics saved
with the document. If you see an { EMBED } code, the graphic is an OLE
object. Unless you need to be able to edit the object in place, unlink it
using Ctrl+Shift+F9.10. File format: Make sure you are saving as a Word document; in some
cases .rtf (Rich Text Format) files are significantly larger than .doc
files.11. Document corruption

Files created in & used by these 2 versions in particular should not present
a compatibility problem if properly created/edited.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Kelly]

I am also experiencing a compatibility issue. A colleague sent me a Word 2007 .docx file for editing. I edited it in Word 2008 for Mac, and left Track Changes on so he could see my edits.

When he opens it in Word 2007 again, the spaces between words are missing in areas where editing has occurred.

This sounds a bit like a display bug I found mentioned on this site where embedded documents don't display properly, but this is not an embedded document.

It's a very disappointing outcome. As a copyeditor, I bought Office 2008 for the express purpose of collaborating with Office 2007 users on .docx files.

Does anyone know of fixes or workarounds?