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

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Daiya:
Thanks for the encouragement (8-).
To answer a couple of questions: yes, I do get some text from the
recover text only option. It is pretty complete, I think, but a little
disordered, as some content seems to be stored at the end of the file
rather than in place. It is better than nothing. And, yes, I would be
ok with text, as long as it's complete, although I have a bunch of
files with graphics that I begin to worry about.
Maybe this is another thread, but what should one do for archiving
these files? Should everything be saved as rtf or pdf instead of word
format? I know I should have known better, but I guess I assumed that
translations that worked fine in earlier versions could be preserved in
later ones--after all, the rules haven't changed.
In any event, thank you for your reply--I'll keep working on it.
Rich Blatchly

Daiya Mitchell wrote:
> 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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