Word97 crashes opening a Word 2000 document

[Flip Kalee]

Hi all,
Opening a W2000 document with W97 triggers a 'file open by another user'
message. If I continue to open it as a copy, Word crashes: This programs
has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down...

The document has headers and footers, lots of pictures within textfields but
is only one page long.

Are there any known compatibility problems between Word 97 and 2000 here?

A workaround is to insert the document not open it. This would mean however
that we must insert every document (cant see from the outside if it is a
heavy 2000 file) just to make sure Word won't crash.

Flip

 

[Isaac Carter [MSFT]]

Flip,

You you save a document in Word 2000, you have the option to save it in
different format. If a document will be open in earlier versions of Word,
you would want to save it as RTF or Word 97-2000 format.

--
Isaac B. Carter MCSE
Microsoft Exchange Support

Please do not send email directly to this alias. This alias is for newsgroup
purposes only.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Flip Kalee]

Isaac,
Thanks for helping.
Only in this case a 'save as' makes the document grow fom 700Kb to 15Mb
Word97 'thinks' the file is Read Only, opening a copy gives me an unreadable
document sized 7700 pages.

Word 2000 now also says the document is Read Only
and of course, the file cannot be deleted, unless I reset the PC to DOS.
Lucky me :-/ the file is on a PC somewhere else in the building...

Any other suggestions would be welcome. For now the policy will be: do not
allow complicated Word2000 files to be used by Word97, or test them first
,on a nearby PC ;-)

Flip

 

[Cindy Meister -WordMVP-]

Hi Flip,

There were some changes in how Word 2000 handles graphics. I wouldn't expect
such a drastic reaction from Word97, however... Word97 back to 6/95, yes,
definitely.

Sounds more like this document (or set of docs from a common template?) has a
bit of damage in it, which is why Insert/File is working.

Generally, opening files between the two versions isn't a problem.

Opening a W2000 document with W97 triggers a 'file open by another user'
message. If I continue to open it as a copy, Word crashes: This programs
has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down...

The document has headers and footers, lots of pictures within textfields but
is only one page long.

Are there any known compatibility problems between Word 97 and 2000 here?

A workaround is to insert the document not open it. This would mean however
that we must insert every document (cant see from the outside if it is a
heavy 2000 file) just to make sure Word won't crash.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jan 24 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

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