Word97 File In Vista

[Guest]

Unable to open XP Word97 (*.doc) scanned image files in Vista. Based on
previous suggestions I downloaded MS Wordviewer and MS Compatibility Pack but
they did not help. There must be a way that Vista can handle these files -
but I can not find a solution. Will appreciate any assistance.

 

[Bob Harris]

Try Open Office, which is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. The
latest version claims to be Vista compatible.

I have it running under XP, and it can open old WORD DOC files.

Link to Open Office: http://www.openoffice.org/

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Please note, the operating system (in this case Windows XP) the file was
created on does not matter, its the application, which you say is Word 97.
Give this a try, its not guaranteed to work on Windows Vista, but you can
try running it through Compatibility mode:
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,5256-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html

You might also want to drop this question in the Word Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.word.conversions

 

[ray]

Unable to open XP Word97 (*.doc) scanned image files in Vista. Based on
previous suggestions I downloaded MS Wordviewer and MS Compatibility Pack but
they did not help. There must be a way that Vista can handle these files -
but I can not find a solution. Will appreciate any assistance.

Have you tried OpenOffice.org? Should take about five minutes to download
and install so you can try it, and it won't cost a dime.

 

[Guest]

There must be many millions of Word97 documents that were created over the
past 8 years or so by people using the MS Word (*.doc) file extention. Hard
to believe that all this stuff is to be trashed if one upgrades to Vista.
Something is very wrong here.

 

[Ray]

Thanks - will try

Have you tried OpenOffice.org? Should take about five minutes to download
and install so you can try it, and it won't cost a dime.

 

[Ray]

Thanks - will give it a try

Try Open Office, which is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. The
latest version claims to be Vista compatible.

I have it running under XP, and it can open old WORD DOC files.

Link to Open Office: http://www.openoffice.org/

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Are you running Word 97 on Vista? Have you installed the latest Service Pack
for Word or Office 97?

 

[Steve Thackery]

There must be a way that Vista can handle these files -

There isn't. The OS doesn't "handle" word processor files. You need a word
processor to do that (or a viewer application).

Do you mean you are trying to run Word 97 on Vista? If so, the other
posters have given you some tips about compatibity mode.

Or don't you have any version of Word installed? If not, I don't know if MS
Word Viewer works in Vista, sorry.

Incidentally, I'm slightly concerned about your expression "XP Word97
(*.doc) scanned image files". What's this about "scanned image files"? I
don't understand what that has to do with Word.

Explain the problem more clearly and I'm sure we can sort you out.

Incidentally, Word 2007 Home and Student (or whatever the heck it's called )
is really cheap, and you can install it on three machines. Well worth
thinking about. Makes OpenOffice look prehistoric.

SteveT

 

[Mike Cawood, HND BIT]

Try Open Office, which is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. The
latest version claims to be Vista compatible.

I have it running under XP, and it can open old WORD DOC files.

Link to Open Office: http://www.openoffice.org/

I have tried the latest version of openoffice.org under Vista and the word
processor & spreadsheet run fine under Vista. I didn't try the other
modules, sorry, & I've now taken it off my Vista machine.
Regards Mike.

 

[Andrew McLaren]

There must be many millions of Word97 documents that were created over the
past 8 years or so by people using the MS Word (*.doc) file extention.
Hard
to believe that all this stuff is to be trashed if one upgrades to Vista.

Hi Ray,

For what its worth, I have many Word 97 documents which I am able to open on
Vista using Word 2007 and Word Viewer 2003. Some of these documents contains
graphics as well.

So while you're undoubtedly seeing a genuine and frustrating problem, it's
not the universal experience of old Word documents on Vista.

Vista itself has no knowledge or understanding of Word documents - the Word
format is defined by an application, such as Word itself, Word Viewer, Open
Office, etc. Vista just sees a stream of bytes. So the question would be:
what application where you using to open these files, when you viewed them
on XP? And what application did you use on Vista?

BTW it sounds like although these are Word *.doc files, they mainly contain
scanned images of text, as embedded BMPs; rather than text itself - is that
correct? If so, it is a pretty unusual form of document - not in any way
"wrong", but it might explain why you're seeing this problem when many other
users do not.

BTW2 I suspect OpenOffice will be able to open the files successfully. If
you don't already have an Office-style application installed on this machine
and you need to manipulate document files, installing an application like
Office or OpenOffice would be a good step.

BTW3 Microsoft did pull something of an underhanded swifty in Vista, by
removing support for *.DOC files from WordPad. In Vista, WordPad can only
handle RTF and TXT files. But even on XP and earlier versions, WordPad was
not able to display and embedded graphics in *.DOC files; only the text
context.

 

[Richard Urban]

You said in your original post that it is a scanned image file of a Word
..doc. Yes?

Then you now have an image file. What file extension is the image file
tagged with?



--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Dave]

I can't figure out what he's got.
Maybe .doc files with embedded images?

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

He says its .BMP (Bitmap) images scanned into Microsoft Word 97 I assume on
Windows XP.

 

[Dave]

Where did he say .bmp? I didn't see it.
How do you scan into a .doc?

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Check his earlier thread:

How Can I Open XP Word 97 Docs In Vista?
05/11/2007 12:31 PM

As for scanning into a Word Doc, its possible with Microsoft Office Document
and Image Scanning Tools.

 

[Ray]

THANKS to those that suggested that I install OpenOffice. It works great and
is a much better tool than the MS Works Word that is now going to be
uninstalled.

 

[ray]

THANKS to those that suggested that I install OpenOffice. It works great and
is a much better tool than the MS Works Word that is now going to be
uninstalled.

I'm glad it worked for you.

 

[Ray]

The documents in question were created in Word97 (Running in XP). They were
made via insertion into the Word97 text document and saved with a .doc
extention. Installed OpenOffice and it works well with these documents. I
appreciate all the assistance I received here - THANKS.