Word Doc doesn't save as Doc.

[jcstormy]

I'm trying to upload a word doc for school. When I save the document
the compatibility report says everything is ok, no problems. After I
upload the file, I tried to open the document and it tells me it is a
binary file. It allows me to save it, albeit it saves as an Excel
file. The only way I can open the file is to control-right click and
tell it to open as a Word doc. When I do that, everything in the
document is fine. I only knew that there was a problem because the
instructor emailed me.

However, my instructor won't go through this. This is the only
problem I have had with a document. There is nothing but text in the
document. I'm a bit confused and hoping someone can help me.
I'm very new to Mac (less than a month), so I'm still trying to figure
stuff out. Any thoughts and insight would greatly be appreciated.
Thank you!

 

[CyberTaz]

Sorry, but your post lacks sufficient detail to be sure of exactly what to
suggest. Always mention your versions of Mac OS and Office, to begin with.

Also, what you mean by "upload" isn't clear... Upload to where? How? Knowing
exactly what are you doing & how are you doing so would make it far more
likely for someone to offer a responsible comment on what's going wrong

Two suggestions right off the bat, though, are a) be certain you are saving
in "Word Document" format & B) when you save the doc make sure you have a
check in the box to "Append file extension" - I'm expect the file is somehow
winding up in a Windows environment.

As far as why you get the "binary" message & Excel involvement revolves
around the info requested above. I suspect that you have no problem with the
locally stored file, but that this "uploaded" copy is what presents the
problem. Provide more detail & someone will be glad to help you further.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[jcstormy]

Thank you for your response. Sorry for the lack of info. I'm using
an iMac with OS X Tiger and Office 2004 for Mac.

I am referring to "upload" as in attaching a document and submitting
an assignment. I was trying to do this on my college website. It's
kind of like attaching a document in an email. I saved the document
in my documents folder and it was saved as a Word Document. To upload
(attach) the file on the school website, I just had to click on a
button that says "attach" and I can search for the document, then
click attach. It was during the "attach" process that I was having
trouble.

What I figured out was when attaching the document is was missing
the .doc extension, although I'm not sure how or why. I did double
check my Word settings and the default for saving is "word document"
and the "append file extension" is checked. You were correct that I
had no trouble opening the file on my own computer. I was able to
realize the .doc extension was missing because I used PC to attach the
same file (I emailed it to myself). I was able to open, save and
attach the file from an email to a PC.

What was strange was that I had attached other documents in past (from
my iMac) and the instructor had no problem opening the file. So, I
guess I'm trying to figure out how the document lost the .doc between
saving and attaching it on the school website. Hope this helps.
Thank you.

 

[John McGhie]

The only thing I can suggest is that you check in your Finder preferences to
make sure "Show all file extensions" is checked. You will then see
immediately if an extension is missing from the original file on your hard
disk.

However, I do not think that's your problem. Any computer these days should
automatically handle a Word document correctly without an extension (Mac has
not needed extensions since OS X came out, Windows even longer...).

However, Mac OS X is Unix under the skin, and Unix does like to have
extensions on its file names, particularly when dealing with Websites, where
files will otherwise sometimes be "assumed" to be HTML. If they're not,
weirdness happens

Cheers

Thank you for your response. Sorry for the lack of info. I'm using
an iMac with OS X Tiger and Office 2004 for Mac.

I am referring to "upload" as in attaching a document and submitting
an assignment. I was trying to do this on my college website. It's
kind of like attaching a document in an email. I saved the document
in my documents folder and it was saved as a Word Document. To upload
(attach) the file on the school website, I just had to click on a
button that says "attach" and I can search for the document, then
click attach. It was during the "attach" process that I was having
trouble.

What I figured out was when attaching the document is was missing
the .doc extension, although I'm not sure how or why. I did double
check my Word settings and the default for saving is "word document"
and the "append file extension" is checked. You were correct that I
had no trouble opening the file on my own computer. I was able to
realize the .doc extension was missing because I used PC to attach the
same file (I emailed it to myself). I was able to open, save and
attach the file from an email to a PC.

What was strange was that I had attached other documents in past (from
my iMac) and the instructor had no problem opening the file. So, I
guess I'm trying to figure out how the document lost the .doc between
saving and attaching it on the school website. Hope this helps.
Thank you.

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John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]