word doc and open office

[shodan]

Problem:

My wife had been working in open office [on her thesis]

She started using my 'new' used laptop which is xp and had word 2007.

What we did not realize was that this was just a trial offer. So word 2007 quit working unless you buy the license.

I had word 2000 and put it on the laptop.

NOW she is having problems with the document going 'crazy' with about 4 lines of space between sentences on pages where she has revised the thesis.

Anybody know what to do?

 

[Don]

One option:

To open Microsoft Office Word 2007 .docx or .docm files with Microsoft Office Word 2003, Word 2002, or Word 2000, you need to install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats and any necessary Office updates. By using the Compatibility Pack for the 2007 Office system, you can open, edit some items, and save Office Word 2007 documents in previous versions of Word.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/w...n-an-earlier-version-of-word-HA010044473.aspx

 

[glfredrick]

I edit and format doctoral dissertations in Word. There are a couple of things that are likely... First, turn on the paragraph marks so that you can see what is happening in the text. Don't worry, the paragraph marks are non-printing and they will not effect the final formatting of the document, but they do allow one to see where the enter key has been hit (backward "p" mark), tab used (arrow), space bar (dot), or other formatting like shift+enter (reverse curve arrow), etc.

Another thing that can be seen is section breaks, both page level and within the text. Sometimes one word processor will set section breaks often where another doesn't, and vice versa.

Once one can see what is going on in the text, the next step is to remove all the offending formatting, which one can do manually, one line at a time, or more quickly by applying styles, whichever is the more comfortable. At times, the best way is to simply cut and paste the text into a new document and re-apply formatting.

There are also some controls in the "page setup" area that effect how text is handled, so check that out as well.