DisableFeature and Tracked Changes (97/XP)

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We are rolling out to Office XP soon, and one thing we need to consider is that clients will send us documents in Word 97 and insist on them being 97-compliant.

I have discovered the joy of disabling features after Word 97 under Tools|Options|Save>, and I am grateful that it will even tell me what features will be lost in the current document.

I accidentally had Track Changes turned on when I did that and was especially pleased to find out that I could easily find the changes made when those features were lost.

In testing this functionality, I had trouble with even a little matter. I created a new table and then nested another table inside. When I choose to disable the features, the hourglass comes up as normal. But it takes a long time. Even after 5 minutes, I had to abort the program. This was only a simple table with one nested table with no other text in the document.

Does this method work for the rest of you? I’d really like to use this method rather than use Compare to find out what changes were made. I know that the computer in question is bogged down (the physical components are fine, but I think there are just too many background processes), making many Word features go more slowly. But 5 minutes is rather excessive.

Has anyone had problems with this? Is it just best not to use Track Changes when disabling post-97 features?

Kevin Elmore

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Hi Kevin:
I don’t have Word 2002 to test, but I did with Word 2000. There was no delay in disabling features not supported by Word 97 when I had a nested table. You say that the particular computer you tried this on is bogged down with running processes. Why don’t you:
1. Run a virus check with up to date definitions before doing anything else.
2. Then, go to the Task Manager & close down everything except Explorer.
3. Start Word & create a new document with a nested table & save it.
4. Then tick the box in Tools/Options/Save/ & disable features not supported by Word 97.

See if you still get the hourglass. If not, you need to track down which process affected Word, by starting them one at a time. (You should also run scandisk & defrag on the machine, if you haven’t already.) If you still get the hourglass, try the steps in post 197827.
Hope this helps,

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I’m getting a bit concerned about this process.
On a lark, I went to Word 2000 and tried this. My system is still hanging after I chose to disable features not supported in Word 97.
It works fine if Track Changes is turned off, but it seems that the Tracked Changes are killing my process.

Sadly, I cannot kill other features in Explorer, as my Word 2000 is run through a client. But I’ll try the method you suggested, Phil, on the Word 2002 machine.

Kevin

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Hi Kevin:
I apologize. I did not turn track changes on when I disabled features not supported by Word 97. I just tried it & my version of Word crashed also. I tried it also after disabling all add-ins, etc. by starting Word from the command line with
winword.exe /a

It still crashed. Sorry for misleading you.

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Not a problem, Phil. I’m just glad to have supporting evidence. That is three environments that I know where disabling features with tracked changes runs into a problem with nested tables. I clearly need to find another solution.

I am contemplating putting into place a procedure where the user runs a macro that identifies nested tables in Word 2000 and up. Then the user can manually adjust those tables. At that point, the user will activate Tracked Changes and disable the features. I just hope that nested tables are the only things that cause this problem. I’ve only tested nested tables because that is the most visible change from Word 97 to Word 200x.

Now I just need to poke the VBA community and find the best way to determine if a table contains a nested table.

Thanks.
Kevin

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> “find the best way to determine if a table contains a nested table”

I’m very interested too. In Word 2003 I nested table(2) into table(1) and ActiveDocument.Tables.Count produced just 1 !
So using a For Each loop through the tables won’t work.

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> “find the best way to determine if a table contains a nested table”

I’m very interested too. In Word 2003 I nested table(2) into table(1) and ActiveDocument.Tables.Count produced just 1 !
So using a For Each loop through the tables won’t work.

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Try this:

Function HasNestedTables(doc As Document) As Boolean
Dim tbl As Table
For Each tbl In doc.Tables
    If tbl.Tables.Count > 0 Then
        HasNestedTables = True
        Exit Function
    End If
Next
HasNestedTables = False
End Function
 
Sub Test_HasNestedTables()
MsgBox HasNestedTables(ActiveDocument)
End Sub

I tested in Word 2002, but I suspect Word 2000 would work similarly. I suspect that Word 97 would choke, as there was no reason to have a .Tables property for a table in Word 97.

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Thanks Jefferson!

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Thanks Jefferson!

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Try this:

Function HasNestedTables(doc As Document) As Boolean
Dim tbl As Table
For Each tbl In doc.Tables
    If tbl.Tables.Count > 0 Then
        HasNestedTables = True
        Exit Function
    End If
Next
HasNestedTables = False
End Function
 
Sub Test_HasNestedTables()
MsgBox HasNestedTables(ActiveDocument)
End Sub

I tested in Word 2002, but I suspect Word 2000 would work similarly. I suspect that Word 97 would choke, as there was no reason to have a .Tables property for a table in Word 97.

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Not a problem, Phil. I’m just glad to have supporting evidence. That is three environments that I know where disabling features with tracked changes runs into a problem with nested tables. I clearly need to find another solution.

I am contemplating putting into place a procedure where the user runs a macro that identifies nested tables in Word 2000 and up. Then the user can manually adjust those tables. At that point, the user will activate Tracked Changes and disable the features. I just hope that nested tables are the only things that cause this problem. I’ve only tested nested tables because that is the most visible change from Word 97 to Word 200x.

Now I just need to poke the VBA community and find the best way to determine if a table contains a nested table.

Thanks.
Kevin

Reply | Quote

Hi Kevin:
I apologize. I did not turn track changes on when I disabled features not supported by Word 97. I just tried it & my version of Word crashed also. I tried it also after disabling all add-ins, etc. by starting Word from the command line with
winword.exe /a

It still crashed. Sorry for misleading you.

Reply | Quote

I’m getting a bit concerned about this process.
On a lark, I went to Word 2000 and tried this. My system is still hanging after I chose to disable features not supported in Word 97.
It works fine if Track Changes is turned off, but it seems that the Tracked Changes are killing my process.

Sadly, I cannot kill other features in Explorer, as my Word 2000 is run through a client. But I’ll try the method you suggested, Phil, on the Word 2002 machine.

Kevin

Reply | Quote

Hi Kevin:
I don’t have Word 2002 to test, but I did with Word 2000. There was no delay in disabling features not supported by Word 97 when I had a nested table. You say that the particular computer you tried this on is bogged down with running processes. Why don’t you:
1. Run a virus check with up to date definitions before doing anything else.
2. Then, go to the Task Manager & close down everything except Explorer.
3. Start Word & create a new document with a nested table & save it.
4. Then tick the box in Tools/Options/Save/ & disable features not supported by Word 97.

See if you still get the hourglass. If not, you need to track down which process affected Word, by starting them one at a time. (You should also run scandisk & defrag on the machine, if you haven’t already.) If you still get the hourglass, try the steps in post 197827.
Hope this helps,

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