Publisher 2007-file crashes

[Suzanne]

I spent 2 days working on our business website. I saved the files as .pub
files. I backed up the files to our 2nd hard drive. This morning I cannot
open any of them, the originals or the backups. Publisher will only open
files that are not website-related - ie: our business newsletter opens fine.
I am at a loss. I ran Office Diagnostics which told me nothing was wrong.
Is it possible to get these files to open, or have I just wasted 2 days of my
time? Will it even be worth my re-creating the webpages or will they crash
again? I'd like to know what could be causing the issue in the first place.
Any help is appreciated.

 

[DavidF]

Publisher files can go corrupt on occasion regardless of whether they are
web or print publications. Sometimes it has to do with saving to removable
media, sometimes to some other reason. Saving to and opening from a
secondary hard drive should not be an issue, unless you are talking about an
external USB drive. In that case, copy the file to your local hard drive and
open it there. Or if you were opening and saving to and from an external USB
drive, that alone may have corrupted the file beyond repair.

Here is a recent post by Mary Sauer in the general newsgroup that might also
lead to a solution:

"Do you have Norton?
How to use Office programs with the Norton AntiVirus Office plug-in
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329820/en-us

Error message when you try to open a publication in Publisher: "Publisher
cannot
open the file" or "Publisher has detected a problem"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928890/en-us

How to troubleshoot a damaged publication in Publisher
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/198256/en-us

 

[Suzanne]

Bless you! I added the PromptForBadFiles registry subkey and the file
opened. I am breathing a sigh of relief!

The files were on our hard drive, not a removable drive. But I had made
duplicate copies of them to an external drive for backup. I was simply
pointing out that Publisher would not open either the original, on the hard
drive, or the backup drive.

In any case, thanks for the help!

 

[DavidF]

Thanks for posting back, but it is Mary that deserves the praise...

You are very smart to be backing up...

DavidF

 

[Suzanne]

This is Suzanne again. The problem has returned, only worse. I cannot open
any publisher files for the webpage. If the software is that unreliable, I
will have to use something else, but did like the visual results I was
getting.

Suzanne

 

[DavidF]

Sorry to hear that.

I don't think that Publisher could be called "unreliable". Personally I have
never had a problem in the 10 years or so I have been using it. However, you
are obviously having problems, and I can't say why. If you could open one of
the files, I would suggest that you run the Design Checker to see if that
found anything wrong, as it sounds like it is specific to the your web page
publication file. However, it might also have something to do with a
security patch, AV or something else about your particular computer.

I guess unless someone else jumps in and offers a solution, I would post
your question in the general Publisher newsgroup and ask there. Perhaps Mary
or someone else would have some solution. Be sure to tell them what version
of Publisher you are using, your operating system, etc. and tell them what
you have tried.

Alternatively if you want to upload it to www.yousendit.com , send the link
to the file to yourself, and then post it here, I would be willing to try to
open it myself. The yousendit service is free and you need not register to
use it. If you do, then tell us what version of Publisher you are using.

Sorry I am not more help.

DavidF

 

[DavidF]

Suzanne,

I don't know that this will help, but the Office SP2 is available now, and
you might install it and see if that helps.

Description of 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2) and of
Microsoft Office Language Pack 2007 SP2:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=953195

DavidF