Opening Word 97 docs in Word 2003

[Paul]

When I open a document created with Word 97 using Word 2003, I see a lot of
very odd characters. Not all of the text is these odd characters, but at
least 50%. Do I need to use a convertor to prep the document before I open
it with Word 2003?

Thx on advance for any help.

 

[garfield-n-odie [MVP]]

Word 97 and Word 2003 share the same basic file format, so no
converter should be needed. My guess is that an unusual font was
used to create the document, and this unusual font is not
available on the computer you are now using to open the document,
so the odd characters are the result of a font substitution problem.