Word 2002 won't open docs with spaces in name

[Brian Waggoner]

Hello all,

Thanks for all the great info here, I've searched but
don't find the error I'm experiencing.

OS: Win XP pro
Office XP Pro

If I try to open the file "ex ample.doc" (note space
between the x and a) by double clicking it in explorer,
Word says "cannot find file "drive:\path\ex". Obviously,
the error message is saying it's not reading past the
space in the file name. If I open Word, then use
File>Open, then select the file, it opens normaly.
Alternately, if I rename the file and remove the space,
it can also be opened by double clicking in explorer.

Any help greatly appreciated!

Sincerely,
Brian

 

[Jan Vereecke]

The problem is not related to Word, but to a setting in your registry
(Although it's probably Word's installation routine that created this
incorrectly).
I normally correct this directly in the registry, but you can do it through
windows explorer too in Win2K.
Select Tools | Folder Options | File types
Select the files with extention DOC and file type Microsoft Word Document.
Then click 'Advanced"
Select 'Open' and click "Edit"
Now everywhere you see %1 replace it by "%1". That should do normally do
it.

 

[Beth Melton]

It's best to let Word recreate the file association. Go to
Start/Run and run:

winword /r

Note the space before the forward slash.

Additionally there should only be once occurrence of "%1" (typically
found in [FileOpen("%1")]). If more than one then this causes the
"File in use" messages when you open the file outside of the
application. The OS is attempting to open the file twice per the
instructions provided.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Beth Melton]

Hi Brian,

I'm not sure what you ended up with for you file association, but as I
noted it's best to let Word/Office recreate it by going to Start/Run
and running:

winword /r.

If you left "%1" in the Command line and removed it from DDE, or
removed DDE then you may find you have other problems.

In the past you needed to use DDE to open the file or it multiple
instances of Word would start when opening multiple files. Now that
Word is SDI I'm not sure (I haven't really 'tinkered' around to find
out) but it could cause the inability to open multiple files if
opening then from an Exploring Window.

It should be:

Command:
"<application path> \WINWORD.EXE" /n /dde

DDE:
[REM _DDE_Direct][FileOpen("%1")]

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/