square characters in Word doc

[Philip Wright]

I am trying to open a Word document but it only shows square characters. The
file type is Plain Text Document - Western European (Windows). I am using
Word 2003. How can I convert this document to a readable format?

Thanks.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See “WD2002: Symbol Characters Are Changed to Box Characters†at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=290978 for one possibility.

 

[Philip Wright]

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, it only works if the original font
used was wingdings. I tried the macro for the file but it didn't work. Any
other suggestions?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Not entirely true. It would work if the problem were the one described (if
you had converted the text to *any* symbol font). In such situations,
pasting the text into WordPad also fixes it. Clearly, your problem is
something different.

From your statement, it sounds as if you are getting the file conversion
dialog when you open the file. That suggests that the document is not a Word
document. What is the file extension?

 

[Philip Wright]

I did try opening in Wordpad (square characters) and Notepad (no characters).

When I double click the file, it opens without any prompts and just shows
the square characters.

The file is a .doc file. When I look at the properties when opened in Word
2003, it says "Plain Text Document - Western European (Windows)". I think
this is related to the problem, but I don't know how to change it.

Philip

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I think the bottom line is that the document is damaged. Have you tried Open
and Repair? If that doesn't help, then I guess it's a lost cause. Was the
document ever opened directly from a floppy?

 

[Philip Wright]

The file is from someone else who likely created the file in the UK. I
personally have not opened the file successfully so will try and get another
copy. Thanks for your assistance.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If the file was emailed, it may have been garbled in transmission. If the
sender has the ability to compress the file using WinZip or the like, that
would help preserve it from damage along the way.