Problem With RTF File Loading

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I saved a Word file as an RTF file. When I closed the file and tried to reopen it, Word refused to open it. The error message was:

“Word can not open the document.
Try one or more of the following:
* On the File menu, click Open to open the document.
* Make sure the document has a .DOC extension.”

I used File Open originally and renaming the .RTF file to .DOC did not help. I tried loading the document with WordPad and it seemed to open it but the resulting file was blank. When I look at the file using a DOS text editor, all the text is there with a lot of RTF commands.

Clearly, I can revert to the .DOC version of the file I started with and only lose the changes I made to the .RTF file before I originally closed it. I’m more interested in 1) figuring out what went wrong and 2) seeing if there are other approaches to correcting the problem that I did not look at.

Thanks
Ronny

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What version of Word are you using? Does this happen with other docs or only this one?

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I know ” questions, questions” while you want answers but:
Where did the document come from? Sent to you via e-mail? Why did you need to save it with “.rtf” extension”? Was it a CompareRite document or DeltaView Comparison saved with the .rtf extension?

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I created it myself using Word 97. There were no graphics in the file and the formatting was minimal. It was for a publisher who requires .RTF files so my last step was to save the final file as .RTF and send it to the editor. She replied that she could not open it so I tried and also could not open my copy.

I opened the original .DOC file, created a new .RTF file and this time took the time to make sure I could open it. This time it went fine.

I am not trying to fix a problem here since I could revert to the .DOC and redo the conversion. I am trying to understand what is going wrong so I can avoid future problems.

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Sorry, Word 97.

It has happened a couple of times with Word 97 but it is not repeatable. If I reload this document in .DOC form and save it again as .RFT, it will most likely work.

I am not trying to fix a problem here since I can (and did) revert to the .DOC and redo the conversion. I am trying to understand what is going wrong so I can avoid future problems.

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More questions.

Do you have any embedded graphics in the file? Sometimes I have had unpredictable behaviour when i saved such files in RTF format.

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No graphics in the file and only minimal formatting.

Ronny

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