Problems opening Word files

[drmar120]

A few months ago I got Office 2004 for my Mac Mini. Prior to that I
used Office 2001 in Classic. When I sent the 2001 Word files to my
biggest client (all on Macs) they had no problem opening them. After
installing Word 2004, Word files that I saved as Mac Word & sent will
open but contain no text. The same file will open OK on a PC, though.
Even files now created in Word 2001 in classic will no longer open
properly on the client's Macs. The only anomoly I can think of when I
installed 2004 was that my Mac was not accepting my system password and
I installed Office as a Test Driver.

Any ideas what's happening? And what I can do to fix it?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions...

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello - Just a few thoughts, see the interjections below...

A few months ago I got Office 2004 for my Mac Mini. Prior to that I
used Office 2001 in Classic. When I sent the 2001 Word files to my
biggest client (all on Macs) they had no problem opening them.

As it should be in a perfect world

After installing Word 2004, Word files that I saved as Mac Word & sent will
open but contain no text. The same file will open OK on a PC, though.

Evidently the files *do* contain text otherwise it wouldn't show up in PC
Word either. The missing pieces to the puzzle are 1) What *does* your client
see when opening the file - there has to be *something* there because Word
can't save an empty file, and 2) Is the client still using 2001/pre-OS X,
and 3) Which version of PC Word can 'see' the content? It sounds like it may
possibly be a font- or encoding-related issue - such as OS X
(OpenType/Unicode?) fonts not usable in OS 9, but interchangeable with
Windows. If the client is using OS X/Office 2004, though, that shouldn't be
the problem.

Even files now created in Word 2001 in classic will no longer open
properly on the client's Macs. The only anomoly I can think of when I
installed 2004 was that my Mac was not accepting my system password and
I installed Office as a Test Driver.

Can you still open them OK on *your* Mac? This sounds like a separate (but
possibly related) issue because of the Test Drive. Did you uninstall the
Test Drive using the Remove Office utility? If you still have it installed -
I'm not clear on whether you're *now* actually using 2004 or the Test
Drive - or simply dragged its folder to the Trash the remnants are ghouls &
goblins that will haunt you forever. If necessary, run the utility (in the
~\Applications\MS Office 2004\Additional Tools folder) to expurgate all
traces of the Test Drive, Repair Permissions, restart & empty the Trash.
Then see if Word won't behave more as a team player. And Yes, the Test Drive
spectres *will* affect 2001 as well as 2004 & X.

Any ideas what's happening? And what I can do to fix it?

See if any of the above applies & if so whether the suggestions make any
difference. If not, post back with more details (incl. all relevent OS &
Office versions - including update levels) & someone here will dig in a bit
deeper.