Installing FileFormatConverters.exe

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I’ve just tried to install FileFormatConverters.exe to enable Word XP to read files in XML format. As suggested on the MS download site, I made sure all my Office programs (Office XP suite + Visio 2007 + PowerPoint Viewer 2007) were fully updated beforehand. When I tried to install the converters I got the message “Another version of this product is already installed …” and was instructed to remove the other version first. However, looking through the list of programs to uninstall there was no mention of FileFormatConverters. Needless to say Word XP will still not read XML files. Does this mean I have to uninstall Visio 2007 and PowerPoint Viewer 2007 to allow the Converters file to install?

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It’s worth a try – uninstall the Office 2007 components, then install the file format converters, and finally try to reinstall the Office 2007 components.

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It’s worth a try – uninstall the Office 2007 components, then install the file format converters, and finally try to reinstall the Office 2007 components.

Thanks very much indeed, Hans. Since posting, I’ve uninstalled Visio 2007 (the only 2007 component apart from PowerPoint Viewer 2007, which won’t uninstall – the routine looks for non-existent source DVD and can’t even find the viewer on my Visio installation DVD), found and uninstalled the existing version of FileFormatConverters.exe (aka Compatibility Pack), then reinstalled FFC.

When I tried to open a sample .docx file I had downloaded off the internet I then got the message “This is a pre-release version of the compatibility pack and can open pre-release Office 2007 files only. …. Do you want to install an updated version?” I therefore installed the supposedly updated version of FFC only to get the same “pre-release” message once more when I tried to open a .docx file.

It begins to look as though, rather than trying to persist with using Word XP to open and edit XML files, the only solution may be to purchase either an update or full version of Office 2007. Am I right in assuming Word 2007 will open docx files without any problems (seems to be its native format)? Can you also tell me whether it will open XML files from other sources/programs, which is my real need. I rang Microsoft in the UK but could not get a definitive answer (… depends … … compatibility …). I presume Word 2007 will at least handle ordinary .doc files from older versions of Word.

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Word 2007 will definitely open .docx files without any problems, and will also handle Word 2003 .doc files fine too.

XML files from other sources/programs, I wouldn’t think so (though I’ve never tried it, and don’t have Word 2007 at my current location). What kind of XML files are you dealing with, and what do you need to do with them?

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Word 2007 will definitely open .docx files without any problems, and will also handle Word 2003 .doc files fine too.

XML files from other sources/programs, I wouldn’t think so (though I’ve never tried it, and don’t have Word 2007 at my current location). What kind of XML files are you dealing with, and what do you need to do with them?

Thanks very much for taking the trouble to reply, Gary. As far as I know, the files will basically be text (I’m a freelance translator from German into English, and this is a client’s requirement which is definite but hasn’t fully been spelled out yet). All I know is so far is that they will be of the form *.xml.

The client has a “master plan” of importing files from different translators and in various pairs of languages created using translation memory programs such as Wordfast or Trados (and using xml as some sort of common format). I will need to be able to open and edit .xml files using Word + Wordfast (which I already do successfully with Word XP + Wordfast in the form of a macro, but only working with .doc files). The client will take my finished translation (with pairs of segments in German and English) and import it into some form of master database for translation memory files (examples include ACROSS and Authorit – this is apparently a fairly recent development that software houses such as Adobe have been getting involved with).

It’s all getting rather beyond my experience to say the least, but in my innocence I had hoped that – given that .docx seems to be an .xml-based format – Word 2007 would be capable of simply opening any .xml files.

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Just got back to a location with an Office 2007 PC, and you can open XML files using Word 2007 or Excel 2007.

It looks like in its default presentation, an XML file opened directly in Word may not be much practical use, in that it shows both the data and the tags – kind of analogous to how an XML file displays in Internet Explorer.

When I open the same XML file with Excel, I get a few options for how to view it – but selecting the first option displays the data nicely formatted in a table, which seems more useful.

I’ve used XML files as data sources in earlier versions of Word, importing the data with VBA and the MSXML parser, but have never played around with importing XML data directly via the user interface.
This is definitely an area where I’ve got to some learning to do too….

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Just got back to a location with an Office 2007 PC, and you can open XML files using Word 2007 or Excel 2007.

It looks like in its default presentation, an XML file opened directly in Word may not be much practical use, in that it shows both the data and the tags – kind of analogous to how an XML file displays in Internet Explorer.

When I open the same XML file with Excel, I get a few options for how to view it – but selecting the first option displays the data nicely formatted in a table, which seems more useful.

I’ve used XML files as data sources in earlier versions of Word, importing the data with VBA and the MSXML parser, but have never played around with importing XML data directly via the user interface.
This is definitely an area where I’ve got to some learning to do too….

That’s very illuminating. I’ve since also disccovered that (still using Word XP) I can get an XML file to open showing the tags as well, but only after letting it first crash Word, and then trying to reopen again and using “recover data” when Word warns that it crashed with the file last time. Perhaps its time to find out just how the client thinks all this is going to work! Thanks very much for your interest and input – much appreciated.

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Just to fill in a bit more:

The same type of ability to open XML files described in my earlier e-mail, can also be done using Office 2003.

If all you need to do is be able to open and make simple edits to the XML files, then opening them in Word 2003 or 2007 might do you just fine.

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Just to fill in a bit more:

The same type of ability to open XML files described in my earlier e-mail, can also be done using Office 2003.

If all you need to do is be able to open and make simple edits to the XML files, then opening them in Word 2003 or 2007 might do you just fine.

Unfortunately, use of a translation memory program like Wordfast as a macro in Word normally involves going through the entire text, sentence (“segment”) by sentence in order to supplement the original German segments with matching English translations. Wordfast finally removes the German (“cleans the file”) so that only the English translation remains.

I could do this with all the tags showing, but it would involve hunting for each isolated passage of pure text manually rather than the process of translating consecutive (uninterrupted) text segments usually involved. Trying to work normally (consecutively) would end up with Wordfast additionally offering the tags for translation (thereby also messing up their formatting) as well as the text actually required.

Thanks once again for all your help. I’ll let you know via the post whether I arrive at a viable solution.

Regards

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