Word 2013 Does Not Save Documents In .RTF Format Correctly After Conversion From Word 2003

I've been asked to post an update on the status of the problem I described in the original thread.

I am still unable to save an RTF file created by Word 2003 using Word 2013. Upon exiting Word 2013, a compatibility conversion takes place, and when I re-open the saved file, The document has been truncated. The page count is a fraction of the original page count, and a large part of the document is missing, although the word count is correct. This phenomenon happens whether I save the document in RTF or DOCX format. NOTE-three MS Tech Support people duplicated the problem by remotely controlling my laptop and performing the same process I performed.

I emailed the Word 2003 RTF document to Doug Robbins of MS Community. He did NOT observe the file truncation following the same process I used. Both RTF and DOCX files were complete after saving, exiting, and re-opening the files.

My conclusion is that I have a flawed copy of Word 2013.

How do I obtain a replacement copy of Word 2013. The version of Office 2013 I bought only allows one download.

I would appreciate any help you can offer that will enable me to successfully save Word 2003 RTF files using Word 2013.

Sincerely.

Paul A. Bussard

I would save the attachments from the email to the local drive and then right click on each in the File Explorer and select Properties and then click on the Unblock button.  Then use File>Open in Word to open the documents.

I have lost  rtf files completely and regret using it.

You should be able to download the installation file again from MS. You must have your 25 character Product Key

Head over to officesetup.getmicrosoftkey.com (which is an official Microsoft download page) and enter your product key.

But, I don't think you have a "defective" office installation.  That would be more likely to cause Word to CRASH, or to create corrupt files rather than truncated ones.

Since your truncated files still open, they are not corrupt, it is unlikely you are encountering the usual truncation problem associated with storing files on USB devices.

The next more likely cause is a bad interaction with a Word addin, although I have not heard of this specific problem.

Here are some generic trouble shooting procedures for you to try to identify the cause of your problem:

<snip>

As a general rule, when something seems to be going wrong, or at least not the way you want it to go, in Word “menu’ go to Tools and then Options, in Word “ribbon” go to File then Options, and study all of the various options, both turned on and off.

You may even get lucky and find some other settings that you want to try that have nothing to do with the current problem.

When I was teaching Word and other Microsoft Office programs at a private business college, I had three rules:

1. Always check Tools Options
2. When in doubt, right-click on something
3. If you’re wondering how to set up a special kind of material in a document, consider whether Word tables are suitable. The placement officer of the school came to me several times and asked how I thought she should set something up. Each time the answer was, “I’d use a Word table.” By the fifth time she had stopped asking--she got the point.

</snip>

The simplest fix is shutting down your computer normally and restarting it. Often subtle “corruption” happens to create unusual effects. Shutting down and restarting the computer resets all of the loaded software, often clearing up strange problems.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/support/why-cant-i-start-my-office-2013-application-HA104011864.aspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921541  2003-2010

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=820919-2002-2003

NOTE: part of this procedure is disabling addins. If you want to take a shortcut, check to see if you have a BlueTooth device driver or addin, ie “send to Bluetooth”, installed. Disabling BlueTooth is rapidly moving to the top of my Office trouble shooting process. Blue Tooth drivers have been identified as the cause of problems with many different “random” symptoms. If you have BlueTooth, disable it in control panel, device manager and possibly as an addin in Office apps.  It’s not that I think there is anything inherently bad with Blue Tooth. The problem is with the people writing the drivers.

Don’t assume some part of the trouble shooting processes listed below doesn’t apply to you. Often there are things going on in the background that you just aren’t aware of. For example, when installing software it is all too easy to have an unwanted app installed if you don’t carefully read every screen.

At this point, you have also think about any software or plugins that you may have installed on your computer. Annoyingly, this problem with Word can be caused by a program that is completely unrelated to Word!

Did you recently install some new hardware? A printer, scanner, label machine, web cam, tablet, etc? Have you installed any software? If so, uninstall it and see if the problem goes away.