Corrupted Word file fixes - was: Converted Word file grows enormously
Alan Litchfield
alan at alphabyte.co.nz
Thu Jul 26 23:44:07 PDT 2007
Diane,
This should go into a FM FAQ somewhere.
Alan
On 27/07/2007, at 6:28 PM, Diane Gaskill wrote:
> Michael,
>
> I have seen this MANY times. We are converting to FM at my company
> now (finally - thank God) but we have many large (400 to 800 page)
> Word docs that contain lots of embedded drawings, screenshots, and
> even photos. Documents like this are easily corrupted because Word
> has some really bad memory bugs, not to mention the notorius
> autonumbering bug - I mean auto-selfrenunbering bug.
>
> Most of the corruption in a Word doc is contained in the last
> paragraph mark (that's where all the metadata (file descriptors,
> etc) is contained.)) But corruptions can also be contained in
> section breaks.
>
> There are a couple of ways to fix the problem. First, the easy
> way, although this might not fix it.
>
> 1. Launch Word but do not open any files.
> 2. Using Explorer, locate the file you are having trouble with and
> note the file size. Write it down.
> 3. SINGLE click the file to highlight it. Do NOT double click the
> file and open it.
> 4. With the file highlighted, in Word, select File -> Open. The
> Open File dialog box is displayed.
> 5. In the lower right corner of the dialog box there is a button
> that says Open. To the right of the button is a pull down menu.
> Expand the menu and select Open and Repair. Word will open the
> highlighted file, analyze it, and fix a lot of the corruption.
> 6. Save the file and then note the file size. If there is a
> difference from the original file size, you might have a clean
> file. If not, go to the next procedure.
>
> Personal note: You gotta know the Gates & Co KNOWS that Word is a
> pile of you-know-what. How many other applications do you know
> that have an Open and Repair button. Sheesh.
>
> The hard Way
> Well, it's not really hard, just time consuming.
>
> 1. Launch Word but don't open any files.
> 2. Select Tools > Options > File Locations. Note the path to User
> Templates.
> 3. Exit Word. Shut it down compeltely.
> 4. Go to whereever the path you saw in step 2 takes you and delete
> Normal.dot. That's right, delete it. Or, if you have modified it
> (that's a big no-no) just move it to another directory.
> 5. Launch Word again. When Word does not find Normal.dot, it will
> build a nice, clean, new one with no corruptions at all.
> [If you are fast, you probably know where I am going with this.]
> 6. Now, create a brand new doc in Word. It will automatically use
> the nice, clean, new Normal template. Leave this file open, but do
> not save it.
> 7. Now open your corrupted doc. See the bugs crawling around on
> the screen. (ok, ok, I just threw that in for fun).
> 8. Turn on hidden text (the Paragraph mark in the menu) so that
> you can see the paragraph marks.
> 9. Copy everything in your file EXCEPT the last paragraph mark.
> 10. Paste that into the clean new Word doc you already have open.
> 11. Save under a new name. Don't overwrite the corrupted file.
> 12. Note the file size.
>
> If the above procedure doesnt't reduce the file size a lot, do this:
>
> 1. Open another new, clean doc.
> 2. Open youir original, corrupted file again. In your corrupted
> file, delete ALL of the section breaks. The headers and footers
> will not work any more because the metada for them is in the
> section breaks. You will have to create them all again later.
> This could take a while, depending on the size of your doc.
> 3. Copy everything in your file EXCEPT the last paragraph mark.
> 4. Paste that into the clean new Word doc you already have open.
> 5. Save under a new name. Don't overwrite the corrupted file.
> 6. Note the file size.
> 7. Attach your original template, ficx the section breaks, and you
> should have a clean, uncorrupted file.
>
> For more information go to the Word MVP website http://word.mvps.org/.
> Also check out this page on the site:
> http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm
> The tiele of the page is:
> How can I recover a corrupt document or template – and why did it
> become corrupt?
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Diane Gaskill
>
> -----------------------
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: O'Laoghaire Micheal <Micheal.OLaoghaire at comverse.com>
>> Sent: Jul 26, 2007 12:34 PM
>> To: Art Campbell <art.campbell at gmail.com>
>> Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
>> Subject: RE: Converted Word file grows enormously
>>
>> Art,
>> Thanks for replying.
>> There is merit in what you say but I have converted quite a
>> number of
>> documents with embedded graphics without encountering this problem.
>> There is sonething unique about this document but I have not been
>> able
>> to figure it out.
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>> Micheal O'Laoghaire
>> KBS Documentation
>> Comverse Inc.
>> Cambridge, MA.
>>
>> Tel: (617) 273-5414
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Art Campbell [mailto:art.campbell at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 2:30 PM
>> To: O'Laoghaire Micheal
>> Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
>> Subject: Re: Converted Word file grows enormously
>>
>> My first guess would be that there were graphics embedded in the Word
>> file that are now embedded in the FM file and are being converted
>> to FM
>> vector graphics.
>>
>> The better way to do this is to separate the graphics from Word
>> before
>> importing (by saving as an HTML file to spin the graphics files off),
>> save the Word file as RTF (many people prefer text) and open that
>> in FM.
>> Them importing the graphics by reference.
>>
>> Art
>>
>> On 7/26/07, O'Laoghaire Micheal <Micheal.OLaoghaire at comverse.com>
>> wrote:
>>> I converted a pretty large Word document by opening it in Frame,
>>> first
>>
>>> saving it as a MIF, then saving it as FM The FM file initially
>>> appeared pretty OK. However after I scrolled throug the file
>>> (without
>>> making ANY changes), then saved it, the file grew enormously in
>>> size.
>>>
>>> Some specs:
>>>
>>> Initial Word document had about 256 pages, a TOC, lots of tables and
>>> embedded graphics Almost everything seemed to make it through the
>>> conversion OK. Perhaps a handful of graphics were dropped.
>>>
>>> FILE SIZE (MB)
>>>
>>> Original Word file 5.0
>>>
>>> MIF File after Conversion 11
>>>
>>> FM file from MIF File (initial) 3.1
>>>
>>> FM file after a litle scrolling 13
>>>
>>> FM file after a little more scrolling 38
>>>
>>> Final FM file size ~ 68
>>>
>>> I also tried copying/pasting the contents of newly-converted file
>>> into
>>
>>> a 'clean' new file.
>>>
>>> The size of that FM File 72 MB
>>>
>>> I also tried cnverting the initial Word file to RTF, then converting
>>> the RTF to MIF and FM. However, the results were the same.
>>>
>>> The behavior is also very consistent and repeatable.
>>>
>>> I have also converted quite a number of other Word docs to Frame
>>> lately without eny evidence of similar problems.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Question:
>>> Has anyone seen this behavior before?
>>> Do you have any ideas of what the possible cause is (other than
>>> "something in the Word file is corrupted"), as well as possible
>>> fixes
>>> and/orworkarounds?
>>>
>>> Micheal O'Laoghaire
>>> KBS Documentation
>>> Comverse Inc.
>>> Cambridge, MA.
>>>
>>> Tel: (617) 273-5414
>>
>>
>> --
>> Art Campbell
>> art.campbell at gmail.com
>> "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52
>> Vincent
>> and a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
>> No disclaimers apply.
>> DoD 358
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--
Alan Litchfield GradDipBus, MBus(Hons), CTT, MNZCS
AlphaByte
PO Box 1941, Auckland, NZ. 1140
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