Word Documents Sent as Attachements

[Stephen G.]

With my brand new G4 laptop I am not able to open any Word documents
electronically mailed to me as attachments. Even if I send a Word
document to myself, when I try to open it I am confronted with: "Word
cannot open this document. The doucment might be in use or might not
be a valid Word document". Seems like I have missed something and I
would welcome any advice to help solve my problem. Thanks.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Stephen,

I sure haven't heard this one before. What version of Word are you in?

What email client are you using? If it's Entourage, expand the Attachments
pane (click the arrow next to Attachments and then click on the line that
says "Encode for any computer (AppleDouble) ...") and then be sure you have
"append file extensions" checked. If you're in another client, look for an
equivalent command or, in the Word Save/Save As dialog, check "append file
extension" or just type .doc after the name of the file. Now try sending the
file.doc to your self again. Any better?

Also, try repairing disk permissions using the Disk Utility.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Stephen G.]

Hi Beth,

Thanks for responding. I am using Microsoft Office:mac 2004 Standard
Edition. I use Entourage as my email client. I'm sorry but I don't
see any expansion of the Attachments pane that leads to a clickable
line that says "Encode for any computer (AppleDouble)". Is there some
other route to this clickable line?
Today I found out the problem of not being able to open attachements
extends to all Powerpoint documents as well (even ones I send to
myself.

Best Regards,
Steve

 

[Stephen G.]

Hi Beth,

Well, I went into the Entourage preferences and found a "Encode for
any computer with a "append file extensions" box. I checked the box.
But I am still getting the same result. I sent myself a Word
attachment and a message came back saying "this may not be a valid
Word file".

Steve

 

[Stephen G.]

Beth,

I successfully ran the disk permission repair from the Disk Utility
but no luck. Any other ideas?

Best Regards,
Steve

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Stephen,

I was afraid my suggestions weren't going to work. Just for future
reference though, in Entourage, open a new message window as if you're going
to send an email to someone. See the little arrow next to the word
Attachments? Click on it and the Attachments box will expand. Directly
underneath it is the "Encode for any computer..." line. Click on it and the
attachment options will open. The difference is that if you change encoding
here, as opposed to in Preferences, it will apply only to the current
message; in Preferences it would become the default.

Now, back to your problem. How are you trying to open the attachments?
Have you tried saving one to your desktop and then using File> Open from
within Word to open it?

Why don't you send one of these attachments to me and let me see what I can
make of it. Put "Stephen's Attachment" in the subject line or your email
will get thrown out with the trash. And if you're a virus writer looking
for a sucker to test a virus on the Mac, curses on you .

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Stephen G.]

Hi Beth,

I have sent an email with a Word attachment to you to your email
address separately.

Best Regards,
Steve

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Stephen,

Did you put "Stephen's Attachment" in the title of the email? I'm afraid I
can't find it. If I trashed it by mistake, I apologize, but you'd better
send it again.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Stephen G.]

Hi Beth,

I have just noticed that in transferring a picture from my old laptop
to the new that I cannot open an attached JPEG in addition to not
being able to open Microsoft produced documents.

Best Regards,
Steve

 

[Stephen G.]

Beth,

I have resent the test attachment with "Stephen's Attachment" in the
subject line. Thanks.

Steve

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Stephen,

Okay. I can't open it either and I get the same error as you. This would
lead me to believe that it's a security issue except that when I "Get Info"
on the file, it says it isn't locked and that I have both Read & Write
permissions! So that's not it.

I would have theorized that it isn't really a Word document except that it's
a .doc and "Get Info" says it is.

I also can't open it in TextEdit. And when I tried in BBEdit with "All
Readable Files" selected, it wouldn't open either. When I changed the
setting to "All Files" it finally opened. What I saw was mostly meaningless
code with "Stephen's Attachment Test" and "Stephen/Gorevan" and "Honeybee
Robotics" interspersed, some more than once.

I am completely stumped. Could it be a virus? If so, it didn't transmit to
me (I just tested by creating a Word file and sending it to myself. It
opened fine.) Also, since you say this happened with a .jpg file as well,
it's clear that it isn't an Office problem. My best suggestion would be to
see if the Macfixit forums have a clue ... unless someone else here knows
what to suggest. Sorry.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Beth Rosengard]

P.S. to my last post. Even though I have nothing further to suggest at this
time, keep checking back here in case someone else does!

Beth

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Stephen:

Beth sent me a copy of that document: I don't know what you did to it, but
internally, it's not a Word Document!

Send me a direct email, please: with NO attachments (otherwise it will
disappear forever in the Spam Filter).

I want to try a few things...

Cheers

Beth,

I have resent the test attachment with "Stephen's Attachment" in the
subject line. Thanks.

Steve


(e-mail address removed) (Stephen G.) wrote in message

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Stephen G.]

Hi John,

Thanks so much for the help. I am on a business trip and will do this asap.



Best Regards,
Steve

 

[Stephen G.]

Beth and John,

First, thanks for your attention on this matter. I have been only
more stumped about this problem when I read that John did not even
receive what he recognized as a Word document from my mailing. That
was distressing since I am certain I sent him (and Beth and myself) a
Word document. However, last night upon returning from travel,
something has happened. Since I took the laptop out of the box I have
been having this problem. And for the umpteenth time I have checked
my Entourage preferences (in a manner similar to Beth's original
suggestion). But what I had neglected to check was my (IMAP) Server
Options in my Account Settings. There I discovered that the box
"Partially recieve messages over 2 kb" checked. I unchecked this box
and now I seem to be able open Word documents that I send myself, jpgs
are coming in unmolested as well. The setting at 2 kb was probably so
small that even my 3 word test documents that I sent to Beth got
hungup. So does this explain why the test attachments you and John
recieved did not appear to be Word documents? How that happened is
not at all clear to me. But I suppose we have all learned something.

Best Regards,
Steve G.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Steve,

Very interesting!

First, the attachment you sent me and John did *look* like a Word document;
but when opened in BBEdit (the only app that would open it), the code that
displayed failed to include "word.document.{a number, like 8}" which meant
it was not in Word document format. I'm sure the same would be true of the
one you sent to yourself if you looked at the underlying code.

Now, in regard to the chopped off attachments ... Yes!!! That does explain
at least most of it. If the received attachment has been truncated, then it
would be missing the last paragraph mark. Since the last paragraph mark
"carries" the document format (among other things), then the word.document.8
identifier would be missing and Word would not recognize the file as a Word
document ­ regardless of the fact that it was created in Word and looks like
a Word file! So this completely explains that part of it.

Here's what I'm not so sure of. Your "Partially receive..." option explains
why *you* can't open these Word attachments, but it doesn't explain why *I*
couldn't open the one you sent me, unless what you did was to send the same
file that you had sent to yourself (and which was therefore truncated before
you sent it to me). Is that what you did? If so, then mysteries solved!

However, if what you sent me was attached directly from the full Word file
itself, then it should have been fine when I received it ... unless (!) you
have some other setting that isn't allowing you to *send* a file over 2 KB.
So please let me know exactly what it was that you sent me. And just for
fun, send me another Word file. Let's see if I can open it now.

I'm glad we're finally getting to the bottom of this and it sure is a good
thing that you noticed that setting !

Cheers,

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Fredrik Wahlgren]

Hi Steve,

Very interesting!

First, the attachment you sent me and John did *look* like a Word document;
but when opened in BBEdit (the only app that would open it), the code that
displayed failed to include "word.document.{a number, like 8}" which meant
it was not in Word document format. I'm sure the same would be true of the
one you sent to yourself if you looked at the underlying code.

Now, in regard to the chopped off attachments ... Yes!!! That does explain
at least most of it. If the received attachment has been truncated, then it
would be missing the last paragraph mark. Since the last paragraph mark
"carries" the document format (among other things), then the word.document.8
identifier would be missing and Word would not recognize the file as a Word
document ­ regardless of the fact that it was created in Word and looks like
a Word file! So this completely explains that part of it.

Here's what I'm not so sure of. Your "Partially receive..." option explains
why *you* can't open these Word attachments, but it doesn't explain why *I*
couldn't open the one you sent me, unless what you did was to send the same
file that you had sent to yourself (and which was therefore truncated before
you sent it to me). Is that what you did? If so, then mysteries solved!

However, if what you sent me was attached directly from the full Word file
itself, then it should have been fine when I received it ... unless (!) you
have some other setting that isn't allowing you to *send* a file over 2 KB.
So please let me know exactly what it was that you sent me. And just for
fun, send me another Word file. Let's see if I can open it now.

I'm glad we're finally getting to the bottom of this and it sure is a good
thing that you noticed that setting !

Cheers,

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

If you compress the document using stuffit or ZipIt (Can't remember the
name) then the file should come thru properly. It may be a good idea to send
both the file as it is and the compressed version. I uess there are tools
that can do a binary comparison to see where the files differ. Something
like the Windows program Beyond Compare. Maybe BBEdit can do this?

/ Fredrik

 

[Juan Maria]

Well, i had the same problem, and i found this solution.

Within Microsoft Word, send the document as an atachement. Then it
opens Entourage with the document attached.

Try it.

 

[Stephen G.]

Hey Beth,

Please look separately for another email with another Word attachment
entitled "Stephen's Attachment Again".

Best Regards,
SG