"Publisher cannot open the file" error message

[Jababas]

I have been using Publisher for 2 years to maintain a monthly newsletter for
my school district. Suddenly, beginning in August, any file I open from last
year, edit, then save as a NEW file WILL NOT OPEN! I get "Publisher cannot
open the file" error message. I've tried everything posted on the Microsoft
knowledge base, but nothing is fixing this problem. My tech admin thinks
it's something to do with something my computer installed to make Office 2007
files compatible with my Office 2003. Any ideas?? I need to have this
fixed asap. I can't find whatever my computer downloaded, so am taking ALL
updates off until I get this situation resolved. If anyone has an idea, I'd
be thankful to hear it!

 

[Ed Bennett]

I have been using Publisher for 2 years to maintain a monthly newsletter for
my school district. Suddenly, beginning in August, any file I open from last
year, edit, then save as a NEW file WILL NOT OPEN! I get "Publisher cannot
open the file" error message.

If the file was created by an early version of Publisher, it could be
caused by a security update to Publisher 2003. As I doubt your version
of Publisher has changed significantly, that's quite unlikely and it's
more likely that your publication has become corrupt.

As it's probably the layout and not the text that's important, opening
it in Microsoft Word with the options set to Recover Text From Any File
will probably not do you much good.

This is why we dispense the advice to NEVER NEVER NEVER perpetually use
last week's/month's/year's newsletter as the base file for this
week's/month's/year's. Create a new blank template from scratch (don't
copy and paste from an old newsletter, that carries over any corruption
that could be there) that can be used for weeks/months/years from now
on, save it as a Publisher Template, and work from that for each
publication.

 

[Mary Sauer]

Are you using the same newsletter over and over. Bad idea... You may need to
start from scratch. Look in your temp folder, Publisher may have saved a file
there.
Type %temp% in the address bar of Windows Explorer, find any temporary file with
a pub prefix. If you find one, change the .tmp to .pub and try opening the file.

That said, do you have Norton.
How to use Office programs with the Norton AntiVirus Office plug-in
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329820/en-us

How to troubleshoot a damaged publication in Publisher
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/198256/en-us