Word 2007 is corrupting files. Anyone else having the same problem?

[Petef56]

I recently had a person call me about a problem they are having with MS Office 2007
where WORD 2007 is occasionally having problems opening files that were created
and saved using WORD 2007 on the same PC. The error message indicates the
files are corrupted. This is a realtively new PC that came with MSO 2007 installed.

I located a WORD 2007 file repair tool and atttempted the repair the files using
the demo version, but it fails to do the repair. Demo version is supposed to display
the repaired file but just won't allow you to save it unless you get the pay version.

I researced a bit online and found other WORD 2007 users reporting the same problem
so now I'm wondering just how widespread this problem is.

Is anyone here having a problem with corrupted WORD 2007 files or any other Office 2007 files?

Temporary solution is just to use OpenOffice.


---pete---

[shadowpr]

Originally Posted by Petef56 Temporary solution is just to use OpenOffice.

That may be the permenant solution.

[pam123]

Could we have some background please.
Did this just start recently after a trouble free period or has he/she just realized the problem was always there?
Is he running Vista or XP (I'd say Vista since it's recent but that may not be the case) ?
Are these basic .DOC files or do they have fancy formatting, pictures, graphs ?
When were the corrupt files saved?
Like Vista SP1 was installed and then this started?
Is there any link between them and some program running in the background at that time ?
Is there any link with the number of times changes were saved to the documents, 5 changes and everything goes to hell in a hand basket ?
I doubt someone who paid for Office is going to be thrilled at the idea of switching to a free program suite but without a little more to go on we're running blind.

[Panama Red]

You may be a victim of the dreaded Office 2007 file change. I experienced a similar issue when I sent a few emails with Word and/or Excel. 2007 uses a new file format. If you simply hit Save when you save a document, Word uses a .docx file format that can only be opened with Word 07 or 08. Same with Excel. You have to Save As and use Word 97-2003 format in order for anyone with older Office software to open your file. And if you modify an older .doc file, you have to make sure to save it in the same format.

[Petef56]

Originally Posted by pam123 Could we have some background please. Did this just start recently after a trouble free period or has he/she just realized the problem was always there? Is he running Vista or XP (I'd say Vista since it's recent but that may not be the case) ? Are these basic .DOC files or do they have fancy formatting, pictures, graphs ? When were the corrupt files saved? Like Vista SP1 was installed and then this started? Is there any link between them and some program running in the background at that time ? Is there any link with the number of times changes were saved to the documents, 5 changes and everything goes to hell in a hand basket ? I doubt someone who paid for Office is going to be thrilled at the idea of switching to a free program suite but without a little more to go on we're running blind.

I appreciate your efforts to resolve the issue but unfortunately I don't have the
answers to most of the questions because very little info was provided to me.
The customer can't justify spending a lot of money on my services just to have
his kid do some reports for school, so a quick cheap fix was in order here.
That's the reason I posted a specific question simply trying to determine whether
this is a widespread problem that would likely be resolved with an Office 2007
update. I realize now I was not clear about that in my original post, sorry
about that.

For the moment, OpenOffice provides a cheap and quick solution but I'd like
to believe that normal Office 2007 updates will eventually resolve the problem
and he will have the choice of going back to Office 2007. The purpose of my
post is to find out the likelyhood that any of the updates will resolve this
problem.

The user was quite happy to see the more familiar menus of OpenOffice
which so closely resemble those of earlier versions of WORD that he was
more comfortable with. So OpenOffice may serve as a temporary or
permanent solution.

I sometimes advise certain people to get off of Microsoft products due to
problems such as this, the high cost of MS products, and also due to the
fact that Microsoft has a history of abandoning earlier versions of their own
products in an effort to force consumers onto new versions when the
consumer was quite content with the earlier version.

---pete---

[Petef56]

Originally Posted by Panama Red You may be a victim of the dreaded Office 2007 file change.

To my knowledge, it's happening during normal file open and save operations with
documents created on the same PC in WORD 2007. ---pete---

[liambl]

I have Word 2007 and never had any issues with file corruption, but maybe because I run the Service Pack 1 update.