[Error] This is not a Win97 Word document

[Anaryl]

Hey there, I've started using OOW as I've undertaken study and don't have Word anymore. Anyways one of the requirements is that I upload my assignments in .doc (amongst other) formats. Anyways since OOW seems to be the most compliant (sorta) with my copying and pasting the assignment docs so I can send along all the relevant assignment information and use the templates I started using that.

Anyways this afternoon after referring back to an existing assignment, OOW said "This is not a valid Win97 doc" (or something that approximates to that). Opening it in Word, just showed a mess. Abiword showed none of my content whatsoever.

So apart from the obvious WTF of "where the christ did my assignment go" and after a string of concatenated obscenities - why the hell did OOW save this file if it couldn't hack opening it again? What have I done wrong here to deserve such a ccruel fate of getting my assignment eaten? And, less rhetorically, what .doc format is the best one to save to? Where have I screwed this up?

Cheers.

P.S - no I do not want to save in .odt format, because nobody uses that.

[RoryOF]

When you say "opening it Word just showed a mess" do you mean opening it in the word processor of OpenOffice (correctly called Writer)?

[Zizi64]

P.S - no I do not want to save in .odt format, because nobody uses that.

The ODF is an International Standard, but the MS binary fileformats (.doc, .xls) are not.
Many organizations and many thousands of people use the ODF file formats in the world; and the newest MS Office versions can open the 1.1 version of the ODF file formats too.
You must use the native fileformat if you want to work effectively with the AOO or with the LibreOffice.
Save your important files in native OpenOffice format, and only export them to MS formats if you need to give finished versions to others in that format.
Note:
There is not (never was and never will be) 100% compatibility between the different file formats.
If you must work with MS Office files only, then maybe it is better to buy a MS Office pack.
Or you trying the Libreoffice: the LO has a little bit higher compatibility with the old fashioned, foreign, never standardized fileformats.

Otherwise: can you upload a problematic MS file here?

[John_Ha]

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for why you should always work in and save files as .odt.

[Anaryl]

I'm just having a vent. The real issue is that the file seems to have broken after saving in Writer. The template (it's just a small table with some text) is fine, but I filled out said table - saved as 2000/XP Word format and it seems to have been corrupted.

The process went like this:

Open Word Document
Copy + Paste to Writer
Save document (opens fine)
Fill out table
Save
Upload
Reopen local copy
Error described in OP/Subject

How do I fix this? Why has Writer saved in a format that it can no longer open? What's the cause of this? It's not as if the template doesn't save correctly.

When you say "opening it Word just showed a mess" do you mean opening it in the word processor of OpenOffice (correctly called Writer)?

No, reopening it in Word.

If you must work with MS Office files only, then maybe it is better to buy a MS Office pack.
Or you trying the Libreoffice: the LO has a little bit higher compatibility with the old fashioned, foreign, never standardized fileformats.

The issue is this particular file. I honestly dislike word processors as a whole, they are a necessary evil and I would work exclusively in Notepad++ if I could. But Other files seem to behave fine. I went with Writer because it had better compatibility than Abiword, which I was using previously. I'm assuming there was some kind of PEBKAC error along the way, I'd just prefer to know what it is so as to avoid it again. I have been saving in ODT and .doc formats each time, and they seem to both be working as expected. Just this one seems to have broken.

I've uploaded the file in question

[RusselB]

What version of Word are you opening the file in?
Are you opening the .odt or the .doc file?
You stated in your last post that you uploaded the file, but I don't see an attachment link in your post.
By default, when you save in the .doc format, you should get a warning message stating

This document may contain formatting or content that cannot be saved in the Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP file format. Do you want to save the document in this format anyway?

Use the latest ODF file format and be sure all formatting and content is save correctly.

[robleyd]

You stated in your last post that you uploaded the file, but I don't see an attachment link in your post.

I think that was in reference to uploading completed assignments for OP's course, not to the forum..

[Anaryl]

Ah it won't let me upload the file as it is too big.

I must have missed the warning message.

I've uploaded it to my box

https://app.box.com/s/fobbsvo7kdu3jiae43dj9mawu9lr188d

[John_Ha]

The file is badly damaged. Google repair doc file and see if any repair utilities work.

saved as 2000/XP Word format and it seems to have been corrupted.

You saved it in an obsolete file format which is at least 17 years old and you are wondering why you are having problems????

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for why you should always work in and save files as .odt.

[Anaryl]

1. How the hell?

2. It's not really necessary - I think the entire process of repairing the document would take longer than simply doing it again.

What exactly is the cause of this? All I did was add text into a table and save it as a word Xp/etc. style doc format. Surely that should not break the document?

[John_Ha]

What exactly is the cause of this?

Probably because you saved it in an obsolete file format which is at least 17 years old (20 years old if you used Win 97).

You are wondering why you are having problems????

Did you ask yourself whether the document might contain some function in Writer which was not available 17 years ago in 2000/XP .doc files?

Did you ignore Writer's warning saying that data and formatting might be lost saving it as a .doc file? Or had you switched off the warning because it irritated you?

Read [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files and you will understand.

[Anaryl]

Probably because you saved it in an obsolete file format which is at least 17 years old (20 years old if you used Win 97).

You are wondering why you are having problems????

Did you ask yourself whether the document might contain some function in Writer which was not available 17 years ago in 2000/XP .doc files?

Did you ignore Writer's warning saying that data and formatting might be lost saving it as a .doc file? Or had you switched off the warning because it irritated you?

Read [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files and you will understand.

You're not being very helpful.

How is .doc obsolete? It's used by a very large number of businesses, academic institutions and average punters.

If the document contained some function etc. then why does a new version save perfectly fine?

I didn't ignore the warning, I *had* to save to doc as that's the format my college uses. What about this was I not clear about.

It seems you have a vested interest in denying there's an error, promoting Writer, and being snarky rather than actually helping.

[John_Ha]

How is .doc obsolete?

1 There are three different .doc standards all using the .doc qualifier. You have chosen to use the oldest most obsolete one.

Edit: It appears on further analysis that you have saved the file as the earlier Word 6 .doc or Word 95.doc format, and not as the later Word 97/2000/XP .doc format. That correlates with the error message "This is not a WinWord 97 file". It isn't.

Complain to Microsoft that it does not make the difference clearer to users. Writer tells you there are three variants and Writer tells you that you might lose data and formatting if you save as a .doc file.

2 There will never be 100% compatibility between Writer and MS Word because .doc is a proprietary "standard" which can be changed at Microsoft's whim (the last change was apparently in September 2015) and because it supports some things Writer does not, and because Writer supports some things it does not.

A Ford carburettor and a General Motors carburettor do the same thing for a car but you can't fit a Ford carburettor on a General Motors car.

Please read [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for a full explanation.

[John_Ha]

A problem is that we don't know the full history of the file. Has it been edited by MS Word, MS WordPad or other application? Have you copied in material from other files?

Unzipping the file shows it has the characteristics of the older Word 6 or Word 95 .doc formats. It is different from the later Word 97 .doc format as the identifying header is different.

Word 6 or Word 95 header

I extracted the only recognisable data I could from the file as below

Code: Select all

Name%%R**** K********%%%%Give details of an organisational goal you have identified in your business plan and job description%%%%Coach and mentoring staff ; assisting with staff development%%%%Describe the ‘Personal Work Goal’ you wish to set for yourself so you can achieve the above organisational goal.%%%%Undertake study in business coaching and mentoring%%%%TASKS%%ACTIVITIES%%TIMEFRAME%%KPI%%%%What needs to be done?%%What action is to be taken?%%How long will this take?%%How will you measure success?
Use S.M.A.R.T. formula.%%%%
Develop my coaching skills%%Undertake a skills gap analysis%%1 hour%%A list of skills and knowledge will be produced%%%%Make Coaching time with each team member%%Schedule time with each person%%1 Hour%%Coaching times are scheduled for each team member in my calender%%%%Prepare coaching checklist%%Make spreadsheet with team members observable sales ksills%%1 hour %%Completion%%%%Meet with team members for coaching%%Visit Each team member and coach them%%1 hour per team member%%Tocked off spreadsheet/checklist%%%%Evaluate results%%Engage mystery shopper to assess sales performance%%6hours%%Full marks in MS review%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
   > PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN > Page |  PAGE 2

BSBWOR501	V1.0E	April 2015

The .doc file is 6.5 MBytes so I have no idea why the file is so big if it has so little text in it.

The file is well structured in the sense that it has the correct components (see image below). The file WordDocument contained within is, I believe, a binary memory dump, so difficult to analyse, but I extracted the above text from it. Searching reveals there are no further occurrences of " the " after the text suggesting there is no further readable text in the file. The file ends with some readable text (header, footer, default, Verdana, Calibri etc) suggesting that the end of the file has been written correctly and is not junk which has been added to correct, shorter file.

Finally, it is possible that Writer corrupted the file, or even that some memory locations on your PC are damaged and therefore the wrong data was written to the file.

File components inside personal development.doc

[John_Ha]

... also search the forum with winword97 - there are posts with several workarounds.

[Zizi64]

The .doc file is 6.5 MBytes so I have no idea why the file is so big if it has so little text in it.

The attached (linked) .doc file is open in my Libreoffice 4.4.7, but it has only one page, and it contains two picture. One of those picture is 2,7 MiB size. (I have resized the picture of the table, to see it, because it was minimized.)

But before I downloaded from the file sharing service, the document seemed as (appeared as) a 7 page document in my Firefox browser...

[John_Ha]

MS Word Viewer only shows this single page ... and no photos.

I am pretty sure the file is broken - notice how the initial character in some words is missing.