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Ron Meli - 01 Jul 2004 19:43 GMT

My user has created a Word document. The problems related
to the file are:

1. At times, when the file is opened, the contents are
missing.

2. The formatting of the page changes to a template other
than normal.dot

3. Some characters are converted to squares.

The file was created in Word 98 and had these symptoms.
When the user converted to new hardware and Word 2003, the
original file was copied to the new PC. The problems
continue.

4. ~normal.dot always gets created (by autosave?) but
never gets autmatically deleted. The user needs to
periodically search for the file and manually delete it.

STEPS TAKEN TO RESOLVE BUT DID NOT WORK

1. Renamed normal.dot per MS document 821715.

2. Deleted ~normal.dot

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank You,

Ron Meli
LWS Group

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garfield-n-odie - 01 Jul 2004 22:12 GMT

So you are trying to open a Word 98 for Macintosh file with Word 2003 for Windows? Hmmm, I wonder why it's not working...

> My user has created a Word document. The problems related
> to the file are:
[quoted text clipped - 28 lines]
> Ron Meli
> LWS Group

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Dayo Mitchell - 02 Jul 2004 17:45 GMT

Actually, that should work perfectly fine, MacWord and WinWord have had the
same file format since Word 97. I do similar things all the time. Plus it
sounds as though the doc had those problems in the program it was created in
(was that really MacWord 98?) Conceivably there might be a font mismatch, if
you went from Mac to Windows. Best to use a standard font e.g. Times New
Roman if possible, at least for the conversion.

However, if that's the only doc giving problems, see if it is corrupt.

The first way to check for a corrupt document is to
copy the entire thing, *excluding* the last paragraph mark, into a new
document. That last paragraph mark holds a lot of information which can get
corrupted, and copying the text into a document with a fresh one keeps your
formatting, but can fix some glitches.

A paragraph mark is a gray ¶. Click on ¶ on the standard toolbar to show
nonprinting characters, including paragraph marks.

See this link for further info:

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm

I'll let a Windows user tell you whether the creation of ~normal.dot is
normal.

DM

> So you are trying to open a Word 98 for Macintosh file with Word 2003 for
> Windows? Hmmm, I wonder why it's not working...
[quoted text clipped - 31 lines]
>> Ron Meli
>> LWS Group

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