Re: Opening Word 7 files in Word 97

[Beth Friedman <bjf -at- WWW -dot- WAVEFRONT -dot- COM>]

In our previous episode, David Rapport said:
>
> We're having trouble opening Word 7 files in Word 97. Word 97 usually
> crashes before the file even loads.
>
> Has anyone had a similar problem? Any suggestions for solutions?

I've had similar problems, but not usually that bad -- it stopped
opening the file, but didn't crash.

> I should add that this only happens with files that are attached to our
> template which is chock full of styles, macros and auto-text entries. Files
> with the Normal template are not a problem.

Well, the tedious but likely-to-work solution, if you still have Word
7, would be to open the file in Word 7, change the template for the
file to Normal (making sure "update styles automatically" is turned
off), open the file in Word 97, and change the template to the
converted version of your specialized template.

By the way, have you converted the template?  You want to do that
before you start opening files based on said template.  It may require
a fair amount of manual tweaking.  For example, I had a situation
where a template didn't convert properly from Word 6 to Word 97, but
most of the problems were solved when the legacy Word 2.0 WordBasic
commands were modified to Word 6 commands.

Hope this helps!

*********************************************************************
Beth Friedman                                       bjf -at- wavefront -dot- com
"Your eyes are like aquariums," he murmured admiringly.
"Don't you mean -- aquamarines?"
"No -- aquariums.  They're sort of a murky green."