Office 2003 Error - will not open Word Documents :(

AimeeUk · 07 Dec 2015

Hello everyone, thanks for viewing.

So I logged onto my laptop to work on my university assignment some more, and poof, it won't open.
I keep getting the same error every time.

I can open the file in WordPad but I just get fifteen pages of ">:£:%<":?&:"
I can open it in OpenOffice but the formatting all changes, headers/footers disappear, images disappear, text boxes containing quotes aren't there.

I copied the Open Office version into a new blank Word page; and filled in the blanks (which took me an hour) but when I saved and opened the file; I got the same error.

Hoping it was me doing something wrong with the way I saved it or the default program to open it, I repeated the process taking up another hour; but I'd done it right, and got the same error code.

The default program to open it is Office 2003, the same format I made/saved the replacement file in.
It makes no sense to me. Also, why now? What changed? It was working fine yesterday.
Not done any downloads or scans so I don't know what the changed factor is.

Please can anyone help me, these assignments are dawning upon me and I need to get my finishing touches done before I can submit them, I also don't want to risk submitting a faulty file.

Thank you so much!

shadow2201 · 07 Dec 2015

I found this option, and I'm not sure if it'll work, but it'd be something you could try at least.

1. Open the Microsoft Office program and open its Options window. Click on Office ORB or FILE menu present in the ribbon and then click on Options.

2. Now go to Advanced tab and scroll down to bottom. You'll find "Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)" option present in General section.

3. Make sure its unchecked. If its enabled in your system, disable it by unchecking the checkbox.

4. Apply changes and restart Office program. It should fix the problem.

PS: If the option is not enabled, first enable the option and then restart the Office program. Now again disable the option and then again restart the Office program. It should fix the problem.

GEWB · 08 Dec 2015

Hello AimeeUk -

Any number of possible causes but Word 2003 always had issues with page numbering and especially table of contents entries. It also had problems if the end of document marker (which is hidden) gets trashed.

Based on your post it sounds like you still have at least one unaltered version of the corrupt file - do you also have a previous SAVEd copy (backup) prior to your last Word 2003 edit? If so, COPY that and try to open in Word.

If no previous copy, try to reopen a COPY ot the corrupt file using LibreOffice. If it opens reasonably well, DELETE your TOC and all page numbers (each section). SAVE AS a Word .DOC file and see if it opens in Word 2003.

A near last resort is to open LibreOffice and Word 2003, open your file in Libre Office, turn on Show/Hide then COPY everything EXCEPT (that is do NOT copy) the very last paragraph marker! Past into a new Word document and see what happens. You will need to rebuild the page numbering and TOC if everything else goes through.

Keep us posted.

Regards,
GEWB

GEWB · 08 Dec 2015

I forgot to add that Word 2003 does not like to have extensive TRACK CHANGES turned on - make sure it it OFF. (Especially true if the doc has a lot of images or tables.)

Regards,
GEWB