Problem with word on Vista

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Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

Another computer question, sorry Rolling Eyes

When I click any link to open a word .doc document using the Vista laptop, it has some sort of problem reading it, if I open the same document on the Windows ME computer, all the tables, boxes, text and other stuff in the document are formatted correctly, Vista gives me a page load of crap text like this, interspersed with the text in the document:

Quote:

!1AQa"q2‘��B#$R�b34r‚�C%’S��cs5��ƒ&D“TdE£t6�U�e�„�
�u��F'”�…�•��Vfv†–6te��„��u��F”�…�•��Vfv†–��'7GWgw‡—�?'��‹ˆ��Lr�9•›-ƭ�‘�Š@�dV�€��f-��m!�
��?"U�m��ǥ�}�a�™O��M�ƒxƒ‘“�m��}��š�‚G›��›��U��‡k�2��J�vF_K"��ŠqyžK�:4Yg��Y��.�
��:氽�_�{]ݰ�� m?„�T�oM4��U-�X�Z��ƒ�C+Qs� ſ��]yN�6m,\��l�+��‰OS��€��f-�wjú��F��]�~•—K��.‹…€��/x:�6�ev:u{�“��,�c��9��n�>��Nx�W�jdb��g�g

I got that block of text by opening an image with notepad to give an example of what it looks like when opening a document in Vista.

Any idea why it wont open doc files correctly instead of all corrupted like I'm getting Confused

, incidentally, it's the same on both Vista laptops.

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 7:09 pm

What versions of Word are involved?
I wouldn't think that the problem lies with Vista. Its the office install.

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

@ DS, it hasn't got MS Word on the laptops like the proper MS Word on this desktop, when I got the laptops, they had a CD included with it for Microsoft Works 8.5, and that's what I have on both laptops, can't find any other Word things on the laptops apart from WordPad.

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 7:27 pm

Thats the prob.
Get a copy of Word Viewer from the MS site.
That way you can at least view and print word docs.
Works can't cope with newer versions of Word Docs.

You can also download a trial of Office 2007 from the MS site.

(Another question, do you not have the Office CD you used for the Desktop
)

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:18 pm

SP

do you think you should complain and send the laptop back and get
a new one

Shocked

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

@ DS, do you mean this viewer?

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=95E24C87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displaylang=en

Only it doesn't say it's vista compatible:

Quote:

System Requirements
Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 Service Pack 4; Windows Server 2003; Windows XP

Nope, I don't have an office CD from this computer.

@ Remmy, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Very Happy

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:35 pm

oh yeah you had a bit of trouble last time.

soz pal

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:43 pm

SP, don�t get me wrong, but we all (who are computer geeks) believe it�s a miracle that you ever made it online in your life Wink

(good for us, bad for the lads Wink

)

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

HA, I sussed it out, when clicking a link to download an .doc document, it was opening with notepad, so I changed it to works.exe and still having problems, finally managed to find the damn Works folder to change it to WksWP and now it opens fine, that's using FireFox, bolloxed it up in Opera and can't figure out how to change it to WksWP, it just gives an error when I click the doc link in Opera, how do I change the default as it doesn't give me an option now when opening the document, just the error Mad

[edit]

All fixed Very Happy

[edit]

The columns don't come out in the Works word processor the same as they are written on the paper forms I have, they do on Windows ME but have too many columns and not in the right places in Works Mad

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:09 pm

You might want to try downloading Open Office which is a free program that is similar to MS Word. That should open your .doc files.

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:16 pm

Rumor has it that MS-Word 2007 (Vista) files are not downward compatible. I.e., they cannot be opened with earlier MS-Word versions.

I have been told this by someone who installed Office 2007 on a Vista system and passed on files to someone with an earlier Word version.

For me this is unconfirmed as yet, but it wouldn't surprise me. It already happened once, albeit the other way around: Word 5.0 (DOS) documents can't be opened by Word >6.0 (Windows).

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:27 pm

Had that problem with friends new pc & vista. (and several others) And he tried fixing it. and fixing it. Not compatible. So convinced him best deal was switch to XP or redhat. Of course, he's techno-challenged so he went with straight XP. Very Happy

Instead of a highly modified W98/XP/linux/personal bast... setup like I prefer Cool

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:27 pm

^^^^ This can be resolved. please follow this link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&DisplayLang=en

Tried it on my machine (XP with Office 2003), worked perfect and I was able to open Office 2007 documents. Smile

419Eater is my life Joined: 11 Jun 2005 Posts: 344

Yeah, without the patch, you cant open 2007 docs in older versions of office. 2007 docs even have a new extension .docx

You can save 2007 docs in a different format, of course. I'm thinking this lack of backwards compatibilty might be a handy modality (as long as you didnt provide any real info when installing it or have an easy way to strip your real info from the file)

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 4:57 am

I can't believe they still make works and send it out. It was crap 10 years ago and apparently it still is. I guess it is a stop gap measure for people who can't afford the $500 for office and sellers who want to have their customers think they are getting a deal; but they make it so you can't really use it.

I thought they quit providing it 5 years ago.

I know that the new word is not backward compatible. If you save a file in the new format, only people who bought that word can open them. A service brought to you by your favorite monopoly.

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