Word 97 to Word 2000

[judy3]

We are having a problem with a number of Word 97 documents that will not open in Word 2000. Our school has upgraded to Word 2000 and this problem does not affect all Word documents previously created in Word 97. These files are rather lenghty with various layout and insertions. Could there be one "thing" that we could delete from the 97 files that would then enable them to be opened in 2000.

 

[nopscti]

Hi there,

Not too sure by what you mean - you mention first that you have a problem opening Word 97 files and then you mention of your school which has no problem opening Word 97 files. Is that right?

If you could state your problem more clearly, I'd be glad to help.

nopscti

 

[judy3]

The files are all associated with the school. The school has a network. The files were created in Word 97 prior to the upgrade to Word 2000. Now we are unable to open some of the Word 97 files. Not all files created prior to the upgrade are affected. The files can be opened on a machine that has not been upgraded to Word 2000 (there is only one in the school), but the aides that wish to work on these files all have been upgraded to Word 2000. The majority are for our English Department and are lengthy documents (95 pages) with some pages portrait and some landscape. Some pages have inserted jpg files. There are also various sections. What I am wondering is if there is any one of these "things" or something else that could be causing the documents not to open in Word 2000. I thought that all Word 97 files should open in Word 2000.

 

[MakeItSo]

Unfortunately, there are biiig differences bewteen Word Versions 6,8,9 and 10 (95 to XP).
Are your documents in *.doc format or in RTF? If they aren't in doc-Format try saving them as doc on a Word 97 machine.
*.Doc is a binary format and thus less problematic with different Word versions.
If they already are in *.doc; cross-saving them could already do it. Do you have any computer with Word 95 on it?
Strangely, the 95 version is often better (in coding) than the 97...

If all this doesn't work or is inapplicable, save the document from Word 97 into a completely different format: "Word Perfect Format" and then give Word 2k another try...


Hope I could help,
MakeItSo

Andreas Galambos
EDP / Technical Support Specialist
Bowne Global Solutions Wuppertal, Germany
(andreas.galambos@bowneglobal.de)
HP:

http://home.arcor.de/andygalambos

 

[nopscti]

Thanks for the explanation.

I think I'd go with MakeItSo's suggestions. Hopefully one will work out for you.

If it still doesn't, you could e-mail me one problematic file (if you don't mind) and I'll see what I can do to get it working for you.

nopsctci

 

[judy3]

Thanks for your help. A friend ended up opening the document in Word 97 and saving it into smaller files (less pages) to see if it would open in Word 2000. And presto a win on some smaller files. Then after much trial and error and tracing down which smaller files would not open, and making even smaller, eliminated it down to one page with a table on it. There were two bullet points in a column which was off the page that seemed to be the problem. Copied all other data on page and pasted into new document and now it opens also. Have put operator onto the job now of seeing if this page has been used in each of the files (as the files are all associated with the same Department) It ws great knowing that someone else's brian was also attempting to solve this problem. The suggestion that the formating in different versions of Word could be a problem put us on this course of action.