Document edited with MS word-2003; MS-word crashes if that document is opened with older MS word ver

[qazmlp]

There is a word document(*.doc) edited with MS word 2003. Other
readers who also have MS word 2003 installed, can open this document
without any problems.
But, Word crashes if the document is opened with any version older
than 2003. What could be the reason for it?

I tried to save the document with 'Save as type' as:Word 97-2003 &
6.0/95 - RTF(*.doc). This time, MS word did not crash. But, the
document also did not open at all.

Does anybody have a clue on the solution for this problem?

 

[Margaret Aldis]

It's really anybody's guess what precisely is causing the problem - possibly
some minor corruption or else formatting that can't be interpreted in the
earlier version (I'd guess tables - some aspects of table layout have
changed at every version, IIRC.)

To rule out corruption, I would first either save this document as HTML
(non-filtered) and reopen, or paste all but the final paragraph mark into a
fresh document. If you still have trouble you'll need to build up the
document in bits, testing as you go, to isolate the formatting that is
causing problems.

If the document needs to be usable in earlier versions, you may need to look
at the Compatibility options and also the Save option to "Disable features
after". However, neither of these are documented, and you'll need to do some
experimenting to see what helps and what is just an annoyance - the "Disable
features" setting is particularly perverse - it is very sticky so inclined
to infect documents which you didn't intend to hobble.

 

[Sten Westerback]

There is a word document(*.doc) edited with MS word 2003. Other
readers who also have MS word 2003 installed, can open this document
without any problems.
But, Word crashes if the document is opened with any version older
than 2003. What could be the reason for it?

I tried to save the document with 'Save as type' as:Word 97-2003 &
6.0/95 - RTF(*.doc). This time, MS word did not crash. But, the
document also did not open at all.

Does anybody have a clue on the solution for this problem?

Well.. i guess your document is too simple for the old Word versions
to detect it as too new file format for it to understand. Or your file
is corrupt. Try to fix it by copying the contents via the Clipboard to
a new document. Also, do use old file versions if old versions need
to use the file.

-Sten