Word 2003 Table Not Formatted Properly When Opened In Previous Version of Word

[Roger]

I have a table in a MS Word 2003 document. It has several rows and
columns of different sizes and some cells are combined. It looks
perfect and prints perfect from Word 2003. I have had others print it
on different printers without any problems and I can convert it to
..pdf without any problems.

Today I was told by someone who is using an older version of Word -
2000 I think but possibly 95 - that when they open the document some
of the rows show up on a page by themselves and the formatting is all
out of alignment with my two page document printing as multiple pages.

I do not have Word 2000 or 95 anymore and I need this document to look
the same in all versions as I have no control over which version of
Word someone will use when they open it. Is there an option I can set
in 2003 or some other viewer available so that I can see what the
problem is? Does anyone have any ideas about what might be causing
this? I can send you the document if you e-mail me at (e-mail address removed)
or post your e-mail as a reply.

Thanks

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

First look at http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm and see if
this rings any bells. Then you might consider setting the Compatibility
Options of the document to the oldest version on which it will be opened.
The formatting of tables has changed a lot between Word for Windows 95 and
Word 2003. You may also want to enable "Disable features introduced after
Word 6.0/95" on the Save tab of Tools | Options.

 

[Ostrov Dmitry]

MS Word 97 and higher should open documents created with MS Word 2003
good enough, but previous versions may use TextConv converters for
reading your document which is lead to the problem you describe. Use
compatibility options as suggested above.

 

[Genine]

Does your Word 2003 table contain nested cells? If so these are not
compatible with Word 97 or earlier.
Genine

 

[Roger]

First look at http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm and see if
this rings any bells. Then you might consider setting the Compatibility
Options of the document to the oldest version on which it will be opened.
The formatting of tables has changed a lot between Word for Windows 95 and
Word 2003. You may also want to enable "Disable features introduced after
Word 6.0/95" on the Save tab of Tools | Options.

Suzanne,

I looked at the link and it doesn't match up to my issue. I have had
3 different people print the document from different machines, with
different printers and everything works fine - as long as they had
Windows 2000 or 2003. I did set the compatibility to Win 95 and did
receive a message that "Vertically merged table cells become
individual cells". I accepted, saved and closed the document and
found nothing different when I opened it again or did a print preview.
However, people with Win 95 still report problems. Any other
thoughts.

Thanks

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Sorry, I'm out of ideas.