word suddenly not recognizing word docs....help!

[Rebecca]

In the last week I have worked on a number of files all created on my
laptop in Microsoft Word for Macs. Today when I went to open one of
those files, the screen pops up asking me from where to convert the
file. It is the same for any file I have created since the 13th of
October, although for a few of the files it automatically opens, but
instead of the document I created I get a bunch of characters w/ some
text- but not what I created. When I actually look closer at some of
the text, there are urls thrown in their, and I recognize some of the
urls as websites I have visited within the past month on my same
laptop. Does anybody have any idea what is happening and how to get
my original document recovered and ensure that this does not continue
happening? I am afraid now to shut off my computer or exit any
applications out of fear of other files that I have created today
becoming corrupted, as I am a college student and have no choice but
to do my work. Please help! Is there anything I can do?

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Rebecca,

Please always give your OS and Office/Word version numbers when posting. It
could be the difference between a helpful and a useless answer.

Try this: Open Word; go to File menu> Open and make sure the Enable drop
down is set to All Office Documents. If that doesn't do it, open a document
and go to File> Save As and make sure Format is set to Word Document. If
you found either of these settings showing Rich Text Format (RTF), that's
the reason you're seeing all that code. RTF is a "sticky" setting; once
set, you have to manually change it back.

Hope this helps.

--
***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>