Re: Trouble opening Word 5.x in Office X or Office 2004

Gotta tell you, re "If there is a bug with heavily
edited files from that era, it would be nice to have it fixed"--the way the
software market developed in the US, the consumer is responsible for
ensuring long-term access to their data, not the software manufacturer.
Fact of life, so I doubt such a bug would get much attention, if it exists.

That said, I don't recall anyone else reporting similar problems, though you
should check the archives of the group--people may have offered up the
problem and solution.
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office.word

>The trouble seems to plague files
> with a lot of editing (last versions of a multi-version document).
That does strengthen the idea that the files may be corrupted.

Does using File | Open with Enable set to Recover Text From Any File help at
all?

I suspect you'd be better off using the old version of Word that you do have
to see what you can get. If it offers "Save As RTF", I would suggest you do
that out of the older version, then ship the RTF into Word 2004. Or even,
better, Save As Plain Text.

Are you trying to recover formatting or just the content?

If you have a lot of Word 5.x files, you may want to purchase MacLinkPlus,
which promises to convert them. Unfortunately, they don't have a demo
version and it's unclear whether that would be any better than what you are
getting, especially if the reason is corruption.
http://www.dataviz.com/products/maclinkplus/mlp_xlators.html

Sorry not to have more to offer--definitely check the group archives.


On 9/7/05 11:08 AM, "Rich Blatchly" wrote:

> I am sorry to bother you with something that may have already been
> covered. I have checked the knowledge base and read what I could find
> of this group.
> I am trying to open files created in version 5.x, and I get
> strange characters only in some cases. In other cases, I get normal
> looking text, but when copied to the clipboard it does not behave as
> text, but gibberish (and the lines don't break correctly, indicating
> that the program doesn't recognize words). In one case where the
> strange characters showed up, I opened the same file in Word X, and got
> text to show up, although it could not be copied to the clipboard. I
> have tried changing styles and fonts with no success.
> I have not looked at other old versions of Word (6, or later) because
> I don't have them on this computer, although I do on another. I have
> tried to find info about this through MS support and Google, and not
> found anything helpful. I didn't see a translator to download on the
> MS website, for example.
> In working on this, I looked through the other documents in the
> folder, and discovered that I could open some of them, but not others.
> All of the files I have trouble with have the filetype WDBN, but so do
> those I can open without trouble. The trouble seems to plague files
> with a lot of editing (last versions of a multi-version document).
> My system is 10.3.9 on a G4 powerbook, with Office 2004 for Mac
> (updated to the latest version, which is 11.1.1, I think. It is at
> least 11.1.0).
> So--bad luck and corrupted files? If I am the only one this has
> happened to, that's not impossible. It there is a bug with heavily
> edited files from that era, it would be nice to have it fixed.
> Thank you all--
>

--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: <http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/>
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

.

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