Word 6.0 documents in Word 2004

[Gordon]

I have a friend who recently switched to a Mac (iMac core2Duo,
currently OS 10.4.9). She'd had a wretched old PC, and had been using
Word 6.0. She purchased Office 2004, and primarily uses Word.

She is having no problems creating, saving and printing new Word
documents (other than interface "shock"). I've successfully convinced
her she can name a file using more than 8 characters!

However the old Word 6 documents that came over from her PC act as if
they are possessed. You can't do a fast save (brings up Compatibility
Report). You can't do a Save As a Word (97-2004) document. We did
get the compatibility checker to forever ignore that saving as Word
97-2004 ruins compatibility with word 4.0-95. That is what it started
out complaining about.

So, you try to make a modification and save the file. Compatiblity
checker launches, you run it, and it says there are no isssues. Click
on save, confirm that you want to replace existing file.

Compatibility dialog launches again, and changes are not saved. It's
an endless loop.

Under Word preferences, we've tried turning off compatibility
checking, but the looping continues.

We've checked to make sure there wasn't anything unusual about file
permissions on these Word 6 files. There isn't. They are read/write,
and have identical permissions to the new files that cause no
problems.

Some of these files are "form letters" of a sort, that she needs to
update, and save.

Any ideas or assistance would be appreciated. I've never seen such
"voodoo". I use Office v.X at home, w/o much pain.

 

[John McGhie [MVP Word, Word Mac]]

Hi Gordon:

Tell her to use File>Save As and choose "Microsoft Word Document".

The Word 6 format was a completely different binary format. The
Compatibility Checker is trying to warn you that if you save the document
back to that old format, you will lose formatting. It is also warning that
the older version of Word can't read the new format. That's not going to
worry her. Just say OK. Ignore the Compatibility Checker and force the
save. I would save to an updated file name so as to avoid the overwrite
dialog.

If she saves each document in the latest format as she works on them, she
will soon have them all converted and never see the dialog again.

Oh: You might want to mention that although PC Word can have 254 characters
in a file name, and 1024 characters in a file name and path, Mac Word is not
going to play if the total file name and path exceeds 254 characters, and
that some older Mac apps are not going to be happy if it exceeds 30
characters

Hope this helps
--

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John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Gordon]

John- your assistance is appreciated. We have been trying, after the
simple Save command failed, to use File, Save As, Word Document, and
forcing the save. It all "falls down" when the overwrite prompt
appears, and we reaffirm the wish to overwrite. This relaunches the
compatibility dialog. Word has been told to ignore Word 6/95 as a
compatiblity issue, and to never raise the issue again. The "looping"
continues.

We have not tried making a filename alteration to avoid overwrite
dialog. However, I'm not sure she wants to end up with two copies of
a 100 or more documents w/ minor name changes. Maybe creating a new
folder, temporarily changing Word's default save folder to that one,
and then going through and doing Save As would recreate all of the
documents in updated format.

I have also considered simple putting all of them on a flash drive and
doing the Save As marathon on a PC running Word 2003. Anything that
would break this loop.

I did find a post in this group referring to this problem. That
individual "solved" it by cutting and pasting the old text into new
Word documents, then deleting old documents. What a pain.

Word 2004 is approximately 3 years old - wouldn't anyone have fixed
this issue yet? (Rhetorical question)

Thanks again,

Gordon

 

[John McGhie [MVP Word, Word Mac]]

Hi Gordon:

Issue? what issue?? This is the first time I have heard of your
particular issue. (I was joking, by the way: I am sure you have an issue --
it's just that this is the first I have heard of it, and I suspect that the
issue is with her file system, not with Word...)

A couple of things interest me: 1) You mentioned "Fast Saves". This
control should ALWAYS be OFF. If it is on, it will lead to document
corruption. It's a hold-over from the days of floppy disks and causes the
file to be written to the disk in a different (and very fragile...)
structure. Word documents should never be written to floppy disks (if you
must transport them on floppies, use the Finder to copy them). And "Fast
Saves" are actually slower than "ordinary saves" on anything except a
floppy.

She should also have "Always make backup copy" enabled. This will give her
two copies of every document. But if you do not have that setting enabled,
Word is trying to write to the file it has open for reading: in other words,
it is trying to replace the content of a file it has already opened. This
is likely to cause problems if it is also trying to re-express it in a
different binary format.

Tell her to create a new folder: Word2004 Copies, and save the new versions
in there.

I would also be interested to check what her "Default" save format is. If
it is set to Word 6/95 you can guarantee trouble. It should be set to the
current version.

Cheers

--

The question you are about to ask has probably already been answered at
http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Gordon]

Hi Gordon:

Issue? what issue?? This is the first time I have heard of your
particular issue. (I was joking, by the way: I am sure you have an issue --
it's just that this is the first I have heard of it, and I suspect that the
issue is with her file system, not withWord...)

A couple of things interest me: 1) You mentioned "Fast Saves". This
control should ALWAYS be OFF. If it is on, it will lead to document
corruption. It's a hold-over from the days of floppy disks and causes the
file to be written to the disk in a different (and very fragile...)
structure. Worddocuments should never be written to floppy disks (if you
must transport them on floppies, use the Finder to copy them). And "Fast
Saves" are actually slower than "ordinary saves" on anything except a
floppy.

She should also have "Always make backup copy" enabled. This will give her
two copies of every document. But if you do not have that setting enabled,Word is trying to write to the file it has open for reading: in other words,
it is trying to replace the content of a file it has already opened. This
is likely to cause problems if it is also trying to re-express it in a
different binary format.

Tell her to create a new folder: Word2004 Copies, and save the new versions
in there.

I would also be interested to check what her "Default" save format is. If
it is set toWord6/95 you can guarantee trouble. It should be set to the
current version.

Cheers

--

The question you are about to ask has probably already been answered athttp://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltdhttp://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]












- Show quoted text -

I have now tried saving MS Word 6.0/95 documents in OSX 10.4 using
Word v.X.

To update a document to current Word format, in the same folder,
with the same name, I simply said Save As, then I was prompted about
overwriting
the current file, then I was prompted that I was going from Word
6.0/95 to the current
format. Answering both prompts in the affirmative allowed me to save
the
document without either renaming the document or saving it to a
different location.

Then, just to see what would happen, I tried the same routine in
Classic, using Word
98. Once again, two prompts and the deed was accomplished.

When using Word 2004, I have an endless loop (see thread) unless I
save the document in a different
location and then, afterwards, drag it back to where I want it by
using the Finder.

This isn't impossible, only inconvenient.

Is there any way for a person who is not a sofware developer, and
lacks any affiliation with Microsoft,
to report an annoyance like this one? It seems unfortunate that the
latest product is one that is
proving problematic, especially when the task seems like such a
mundane one : saving a file.

Gordon

 

[John McGhie [MVP Word, Word Mac]]

Hi Gordon: Yes. You can Send Feedback off the Help menu in Word

Meantime, I have posted this thread to the software team for you.

Cheers

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]