Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

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BTRIPP
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Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by BTRIPP »

I just had this problem crop up tonight (3/11/2011) ... when I try to open a file that's been saved as a .doc (Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP) file I get a little OpenOffice 3.3. error box that says "Read Error. This is not a WinWord97 file.", with the sole option of "OK" which aborts the open. What's especially irritating in this is that it even happens on .doc files that I saved that way just an hour or so previously!

I've been using OpenOffice for several years, and, again, this just cropped up tonight.

I have so far tried the following:

I first shut down the computer and did a hard reboot (not just a restart) ... the problem persisted.

I uninstalled OpenOffice via the "Programs & Features" part of Window's "Control Panel", downloaded a fresh installer from OpenOffice.org, and re-installed the program ... the problem persisted.

The only thing that I can think may have happened was that there was something in the latest upgrade that Windows installed (which happened tonight) that is somehow messing with other programs (i.e. OpenOffice) opening up Microsoft Office files ... but that would be pretty extreme, and I'd think anybody else running Vista would be seeing the same problem if this was the case.

I've pretty much run out of things I can think of to get this to work. Fortunately, OpenOffice is still reading .xls files just fine in Calc (as I save those all the time in .xls), but right now I can't get into any of my .doc files with OpenOffice Writer, and (while I save most of my files in .odt format, I have several things ONLY in .doc, as well as having .doc files coming in from other people).

Any suggestions how to fix this?

thanks.
:crazy:
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RoryOF
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by RoryOF »

If double clicking on a .doc file doesn't work, but starting OpenOffice and using / File / Open does work, then the File Association for .doc files may have been changed. Otherwise, you should delete or rename y our User Profile. OpenOffice will generate a new default User Profile on next startup. This cures many OpenOffice problems. Reinstalling OpenOffice does not create a new User Profile; this is to preserve customisation stored in t he Profile from older versions (autocorrect options, dictionaries etc.)
User profile details at
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/ ... 74&t=12426
 Edit: You didn't mention if OOo could successfully open your .odt files. If it can, it is a good indication that the problem is with your profile, not with corruption of OOo (hence no need for reinstall of OOo). 
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by BTRIPP »

It opens up .odt files just fine ... but any attempt (either clicking or using the file menu) to open a .doc file results in the "Read Error. This is not a WinWord97 file." pop-up ... even trying to open files that I've just used "save as" from an .odt file to a .doc file.

I am not familiar with the profile ... will have to check that out. I would think that having deleted OpenOffice from my system and then re-installing would have re-set this, but perhaps not.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by BTRIPP »

OK ... I just shut down OpenOffice (including stuff running in the background via Task Manger), found the User file, renamed it User.old, and re-started OpenOffice. Once again, it opens up .odt files but when I try (either by clicking or by way of the File menu) to open up a .doc file, I get the same "Read Error. This is not a WinWord97 file." error message.

What next?
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Hagar Delest
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by Hagar Delest »

Can you upload a sample file (see How to attach a document here)?
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by BTRIPP »

Here's the main file that I've been wrestling with: http://www.mediafire.com/file/a1rew94sm ... 110311.doc

I've tried maybe a dozen similar ones, and none will open.

HOWEVER, when I saw that this file was too large for the standard upload (<128k) into the forum, I went looking for other .doc files to try, and, strangely, THEY all opened up just fine. These "other" files were all things that people had sent me and were both .doc and .docx files. The files I'm having trouble with are ones that I've done a "save as" on, converting over a .odt file to a (Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP) .doc file.

One thing I also noticed, the file size VASTLY increased in the process of conversion ... a 97k .odt file was suddenly over 1mb as a .doc!

Also, after trying to open the newly-made .doc file, I found that I was unable to delete it unless I went into the Task Manager first and stopped all OpenOffice processes. If I didn't do this in Task Manager, when I tried to delete the new (but saved/closed) .doc file it told me that it was in use by another program so could not be deleted ... so that "other program" appears to be something in OpenOffice.

Could there be something in the conversion module that's corrupting files? I find that unlikely, as I did a "fresh" install on OpenOffice 3.3. last night, but it appears that the files that won't open are all things that started out as .odt files and had been saved as (Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP) .doc files!

thanks!
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by RoryOF »

I get "this is not a valid winword 97 file" with OOo 3.3 on Ubuntu. Will examine later on another machine (different tools).

The increase in file size between .odt and .doc is not surprising. Each OOo native format file is a Zip archive of several files including the text, and can be often 1/10 the size of the .doc file.

Have you an .odt version of one of these files? If so one of us could generate a .doc from it to see if you could read that.
Last edited by RoryOF on Wed Aug 03, 2011 5:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by Hagar Delest »

I get the same error message too (3.3.0 on Ubuntu). Can yo upload an original .odt that gets wrecked after export?
It may be something inside the file that could be the root cause of the problem.

Remember that .doc import/export filters have been reverse engineered (no documentation available at that time).
 Edit: Wel, I'm a bit slow today... 
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by RoryOF »

It may be a pdf file. Try copying it, changing extension to .pdf and opening with Adobe Reader.

Not a .pdf. It is partially reading, perhaps a damaged (truncated) Word 97 format.
Last edited by RoryOF on Sat Mar 12, 2011 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by BTRIPP »

Unfortunately, I don't keep an .odt version of that file ... but I guess I could re-create it (again) and save it that way ... back in a few.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by RoryOF »

I've managed to read a hyperlinked table of contents, listing up to p12 "Offbeat resources ...". Then it hangs (12 Tips before...), saying loading document. It feels like stuff may have been in disk write buffers and a restart was forced, perhaps by Windows upgrade. I'll have another look later.
 Edit: Would you please do a search for *.doc files and sort them into date order (click on top of date column in search results. See do the dates tally (roughly!) with your recollection of their saving. Are the damaged files all dated the same, or post some date/time? What happened then - system crash, shutdown, Windows Upgrade... ? 
Last edited by RoryOF on Sat Mar 12, 2011 7:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by BTRIPP »

OK ... I re-created this week's file and saved it as a .odt file:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/201yl4kji ... 10311a.odt

... and then saved that as a (Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP) .doc file:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/201yl4kji ... 10311a.odt

Once again, after I saved it to .doc, I can't get it to open ... but there's no problem with the .odt version.

thanks ...
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by RoryOF »

OK, your .odt opened and saved all right. The .doc I made from it is damaged in what seems to be the sane place as your file - the problem seems to be p 12, "Tips Before submitting your resume online" (or its link). Delete those and perhaps the previous and next links and see if that helps make a new .doc readable.

Off air now to cook dinner.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by BTRIPP »

In regard to RoryOF's note above, the whole document, minus the cover page, is a list of links to job-search articles ... so it's nothing but hyperlinks (not a TOC per se).

Also, every .doc that has failed to open has been a .doc that I did a "save as" to create a .doc file ... .doc files that were sent to me (that I assume were created in Word) open up with no problem ... only the ones that I've saved that way have the problem ... and, again, this JUST STARTED HAPPENING yesterday.

As I deleted OpenOffice, downloaded the latest install, and re-installed it, I'm thinking it can't be a corrupted file. The only possible "smoking gun" that I can think of was a 5-file Windows upgrade that installed yesterday ... but it wold seem strange that I would be the only person having problems with this if MS had gotten more aggressive with its authentication (I have a perfectly valid copy of MS Office that no longer shows up as "valid" because of one of these updates a year or so back!), somehow making it so that the file can't be opened because it's not created by Word.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by BTRIPP »

Re. RoryOF's suggestion that there was a corruption at "• 12 Tips Before Submitting Your Resume Online" ... I deleted that line, re-saved the .odt file, and then saved off a .doc version ... and, again, the .doc version would not open (getting the same error message).
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by BTRIPP »

OK ... I just tried opening up a variety of smaller files (.odt, .txt, .rtf, etc.) and then saving them as .doc files ... and in each case they WOULD open up just fine when I tried opening the .doc files in OpenOffice.

Could the problem I'm having be having crossed some threshold for the ability of the import/export filter to handle this particular file (and the numerous versions which preceded it)? These are the files that I was trying to work with, and in case they have HUNDREDS of links (heck, they're pretty much "nuthin' but links") and could this suddenly be a problem?

Again, this had all worked FINE up until yesterday ... but every version of this file that I've tried (and there are weekly versions going back a year or more) has had the same problem since then ... but other .doc files that aren't solid masses of links seem to work OK.

Why would this suddenly become a problem?
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by RoryOF »

I was working on an Ubuntu machine, so could not have been affected by any Windows Upgrade. I said Table of Contents because on first inspection it looked like a hyperlinked TOC. You may have crossed some internal link count in OOo - I'd expect this to be one of computing's "magic numbers" such as 128, 256 or 512. An error might not show up until some numbers after one of these. Using your .odf file, chop it in half or thirds and try each of these to verify that they are intrinsically OK to save as .doc files. then put them together slowly until it breaks and count your URLs.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by BTRIPP »

The only problem with the theory that I've crossed some threshold is that before yesterday, ALL those files opened up OK ... every week I'd open up the previous week's .doc file in OpenOffice, grab the cover page, and paste it into the new file. Week-in and week-out. Then, starting yesterday, I could not open any of the recent ones.

OK ... I just went back and started opening these from when I started to format them with the cover page ... up to October 18th, 2010 they open up fine, following that none of them will. However, I need to stress again, that these DID open up just fine before YESTERDAY, and now everything from October 22nd, 2010 on is not opening.

What could have changed that would have made it so that files that WERE opening up just fine were suddenly NOT opening up? And, saving both the "source file" (I have one without a cover page that is twice as long as it has the links listed both alphabetically and in weekly groups) and the re-created "most recent" version end up with files that I can't open.

Has there been an "update" to Open Office (when did 3.3.0 come out? this week?) that might have had some change in it that would be causing this???
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by RoryOF »

There are no secret updates to OpenOffice. To move from OpenOfffice X.y to OpenOffice X.y+1 the user has to download and install the file for OOo X.y+1. I don't know why this is happening. Perhaps removing the cover page or the graphic on the cover page would help.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by BTRIPP »

Hmmm ... it is possible that I had not updated to OpenOffice 3.3.0 before this week ... so this could have started due to that.

If others are running Linux and getting the same results, then it's not likely to be MicroSoft messing with the "validity" of the files ... but maybe something changed in the program which is causing this.

Again, it's just files that I've saved as (Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP) .doc files, and only ones since a particular date / file size (although the difference between the last one that WILL open and the first one that WON'T isn't much, one's 546k and one's 555k) ... and up until processing this week's file, these ALL had worked fine.

hmmmm ...
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by BTRIPP »

Re. removing the graphic ...

No, I tried saving the "source file" (which has both alphabetical and chronological listings, but no graphics), and still got the error message.

All I can think of at this point is that there was some change in OpenOffice 3.3.0 that may have some limit to the number of links it will handle. I'll have to go try your suggestion for "cutting down" the list and see where there might be a threshold for it having an openable .doc file or not.

The last one that opens has something in the neighborhood of 646 links, and the first one that doesn't has somewhere around 659 links ... so maybe I'll start "cutting down at 650 links and see if there's a line at which the resulting .doc file will be readable.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by RoryOF »

It may not be the _number_ of links, so much as the work space available for them. In either case I think there is no cure apart from adjustment of the source code and recompilation of OOo, including possibly a change of compiler.
 Edit: It is possibly a workspace limitation of 64K in the .doc output filter. Multiply number of hyperlinks shown in the .doc file by (the average length of their tag plus average length of the actual hyperlink) and the answer seems near enough to 64K for me. And so to bed... 
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by cologic »

Hi all,

A friend of mine is having the exact same problem. He actually had thi salready a couple
of times. He sent me the .doc file that he could not open in OpenOffice.

I have MS Office 2007 running, If I open it in MSOffice, can open it, no problem.

So I installed OpenOffice, tried to open that same file, same errormessage !!! No WinWord-97 .

Also, now I got the message in MSOffice that the doc was locked by another user and can only open
Read Only or copy. Same after closing down OpenOffice.

I then saved the offending doc in MSOffice under a new name, as a word 97-2003 doc .doc

I restarted OpenOffice, and ---low and behold--- I could open the new (copy) file without ANY problems..

So, it seems its an OpenOffice problem caused by some new sneaky MS trick in their document format...

Cologic
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by Bill »

cologic wrote:Hi all,

A friend of mine is having the exact same problem. He actually had thi salready a couple
of times. He sent me the .doc file that he could not open in OpenOffice.

I have MS Office 2007 running, If I open it in MSOffice, can open it, no problem.

So I installed OpenOffice, tried to open that same file, same errormessage !!! No WinWord-97 .

Also, now I got the message in MSOffice that the doc was locked by another user and can only open
Read Only or copy. Same after closing down OpenOffice.

I then saved the offending doc in MSOffice under a new name, as a word 97-2003 doc .doc

I restarted OpenOffice, and ---low and behold--- I could open the new (copy) file without ANY problems..

So, it seems its an OpenOffice problem caused by some new sneaky MS trick in their document format...

Cologic
Why the conspiracy theory? It seems to me that the original file simply had some form of corruption that OOo wasn't designed to handle. You might have more of a case if OOo couldn't open the new copy of the file.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by tkmono »

I am having the same issue.

I have an agreement that was created with text and tables and saved *.doc and 1 month later, I go to open the file and I get the error message.

I tried 5 other *.doc files and had no issues.

Of course this file is the most important... and I don't have a backup because I didn't think it was needed.

Ideas?
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by Hagar Delest »

You can upload it somwhere (like mediafire if above the 128kBlimit) so that someone tries to open it.
But as said many times in this forum, OOo is not a MS Office replacement. The key point is to use its native format (ODF, i.e. .odt for text). Else, buy MS Office... that's the vendor lock-in policy.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by floris v »

I opened the .doc (http://www.mediafire.com/file/a1rew94sm ... 110311.doc) in Word without any problem whatsoever, it displays a picture and a long list of hyperlinks. But OOo refuses to open it and claims it's not a Word file.
 Edit: Added link to doc file by BTRIPP 
Last edited by floris v on Fri Nov 11, 2011 12:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by floris v »

I opened it again in Word and saved with a new name, file was some 70 K bigger after that and was opened fine in OOo.
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by Hagar Delest »

Are you talking about the file uploaded in a post above? It's not the same poster!
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Re: Writer won't open .doc files (all of a sudden)

Post by floris v »

Doh, yes, but the point is still valid.
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