Why do I get a message: 'This is not a WinWord97 file' ?

yurivict · General User Joined: 02 Mar 2009 Posts: 5

I have Open Office 3.0.1 on FreeBSD.

Someone sent me few .doc files and I get this message when I try to open any of them.
Person who sent me the files uses MS Office on Windows.

File beginning looks like the regular file.
But I can't find the words "Root" or "Entry" anywhere inside this file.

What might be a problem that the office can't recognize the format?

--- file beginning ---
00000000 d0 cf 11 e0 a1 b1 1a e1 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000010 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 3e 00 03 00 fe ff 09 00 |........>.......|
00000020 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 3a 00 00 00 |............:...|
00000030 b4 1c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 b6 1c 00 00 |................|
00000040 01 00 00 00 fe ff ff ff 00 00 00 00 7a 1c 00 00 |............z...|
00000050 7b 1c 00 00 7c 1c 00 00 7d 1c 00 00 7e 1c 00 00 |{...|...}...~...|
00000060 7f 1c 00 00 80 1c 00 00 81 1c 00 00 82 1c 00 00 |................|
00000070 83 1c 00 00 84 1c 00 00 85 1c 00 00 86 1c 00 00 |................|
00000080 87 1c 00 00 88 1c 00 00 89 1c 00 00 8a 1c 00 00 |................|
00000090 8b 1c 00 00 8c 1c 00 00 8d 1c 00 00 8e 1c 00 00 |................|
000000a0 8f 1c 00 00 90 1c 00 00 91 1c 00 00 92 1c 00 00 |................|
000000b0 93 1c 00 00 94 1c 00 00 95 1c 00 00 96 1c 00 00 |................|
000000c0 97 1c 00 00 98 1c 00 00 99 1c 00 00 9a 1c 00 00 |................|
000000d0 9b 1c 00 00 9c 1c 00 00 9d 1c 00 00 9e 1c 00 00 |................|
000000e0 9f 1c 00 00 a0 1c 00 00 a1 1c 00 00 a2 1c 00 00 |................|
000000f0 a3 1c 00 00 a4 1c 00 00 a5 1c 00 00 a6 1c 00 00 |................|
00000100 a7 1c 00 00 a8 1c 00 00 a9 1c 00 00 aa 1c 00 00 |................|
00000110 ab 1c 00 00 ac 1c 00 00 ad 1c 00 00 ae 1c 00 00 |................|
00000120 af 1c 00 00 b0 1c 00 00 b1 1c 00 00 b2 1c 00 00 |................|
00000130 b3 1c 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |................|
00000140 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |................|

PromptJock · Super User Joined: 26 Jul 2006 Posts: 741

'tis possible your friend is NOT using a version of Office that OOo can handle (i.e., Office 2007).

Contact your friend and ask him/her to save his/her files in "Rich Text Format (RTF)" rather than .doc and send the .rtf's to you. Writer should be able to read those files just fine.

Otherwise, ask your friend to use the "Save As..." function in his/her MSWord and EXPLICITLY select "Office97" (or "Word97") as the save format. That, or using .rtf, might be Just What The Doctor Ordered. Smile

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floris_v · Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 1:47 am Post subject:

Better let it save in Word 97/2000/XP format; OOo isn't very good with RTF files. Are the files .doc or .docx?
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yurivict · General User Joined: 02 Mar 2009 Posts: 5

According to this website:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ/General/OpeningMSO2007Files
OpenOffice-3 can can open MS Office 2007 documents, just can't save in this format.

Same site also says that MS Office 2007 documents are XML, and my document isn't.

So I am not sure it's Office 2007 document.