Help with opening old Microsoft documents (2000)

[barbt425]

New here and hoping you can assist. I have Microsoft Office 2007. It will not open any older versions of Word and Excel documents. I am hoping that OpenOffice can. I am using 4.1.6 which I just downloaded today. I have found how to save OpenOffice documents as older formats but not the reverse. I have hundreds of Microsoft Office files from 1999 and 2000 that I have saved and they would be valuable for me to use in my new job. Hope you can help and have a great day! Barb

[FJCC]

You should be able to just use the menu File -> Open to open those files. But if Microsoft Office will not open them, I fear they are corrupted. Give it a try and let us know what happens.

[John_Ha]

Please upload a small file showing the problem so that it can be analysed. Use the Upload attachment tab below where you type (128 kB max); or use a file share site, Dropbox or Google Drive for a larger file.

[barbt425]

Here is the image file

[RoryOF]

Were these documents written on, perhaps, a Mac?

If they were written on a PC the version of Word current in 2000 was Word 1997, which should open versions written in 2000

[barbt425]

They were written in Word. Is there anywhere I can download an old copy of Windows 1997 and them save them as an updated windows version?

[robleyd]

Older versions of Office won't be able to save in a later version format - that applies to pretty much all software.

As suggested, please upload an actual file that shows your problem (not an image of it); perhaps the one in your image above - see [Forum] How to attach a document here.

[RoryOF]

Have these files been brought forward from an older computer? If so, how?

[Zizi64]

Sometimes, the old documents have not MS document fileformat, but they have a .doc extension at end of the filename only. Try to rename a copy of your document to .rtf or to .txt extension, and try to open it again.

[barbt425]

Files were brought in on a flash drive in a zip file.

[RoryOF]

The uploaded screenshot does not show the usual signature for a zipped file; I suspect the files are in some other compressed format and need to be decompressed. Can you please upload a sample file (<128KB) to the forum for examination.

The screenshot uploaded does not give any indication that this is a mislabelled .txt or .rtf file. I doubt there is any point in trying manual relabelling and opening.

[John_Ha]

Rory

.doc files are not zip files - they are binary files.

A .doc file header is as below but some characters do not show here

Code: Select all

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Until we see an actual file all is guesswork.

[John_Ha]

Another user has the same problem at Microsoft Word 97 - 2003 Document (.doc) where they cannot open a .doc file.

I wonder if this is a regression problem in AOO 4.1.6? That being said I can open .doc files dated 1996, 1997, 2000 and 2001.

It is essential we see an actual .doc file to analyse the problem.

As a test, use zamzar.com to convert the .doc file to, say, a .odt or .pdf or .docx. If it can be converted then it means it can be read.

[keme]

No need for rename / type change. Just start Notepad, and drag files from the file explorer into the notepad window, not as a solution, merely a diagnostic measure.

Notepad should show content from the very start of the file, not masking anything except non-printable characters. (Any "raw" file viewer, like the HxD that John-Ha displays in the first image above, will do a much better job. However, Notepad is something we can expect is readily available in every Windows install out there.)

Show us the first line. This may indicate the actual storage format used. Most likely it is Word Doc files, but there is the odd chance that it may be something else.

Look down the lines. The actual textual content may be there, probably mangled to some degree, among encoding instructions of various sorts. If your documents contain mainly text, there is the possibility that you can salvage most, if not all of your content.

The files may be password protected. Older MS-Word password protection provided exactly zero security, but if the originating software is from this century, proper encryption may have been applied. If that is the case, you need a current version of MS Office and the password used when saving.

[RoryOF]

Older MS-Word password protection provided exactly zero security, but if the originating software is from this century, proper encryption may have been applied. If that is the case, you need a current version of MS Office and the password used when saving.

If I remember correctly, the password was in plain text not far into the file.