Word.doc not opening on Windows phone with Office installed!

[One Brain Cell]

I created a word.doc using Office for Mac 2004. Attached it to an e-mail and sent it to myself so I could open the document on my Lumia 620.

When I try to open it, rather spectacularly the phone tells me that it cannot read the attachment! It's saved as a standard word.doc readable by all versions of Word from '97-present. How can my phone with Office for Windows phone not be able to read a word.doc?

I tried this many times, even changing the file suffix to .rtf and the phone point blank refuses to accept it. Other word docs sent by PC's seem to open just fine on this phone, I find it shocking they've created this blind spot for someone using an oldish copy of Office on the Mac.

Does anyone else have this problem?

 

[Optiplex330]

I have similar problem but with just one particular jpeg/jng files. Other photos are fine, just not that particular ones. Couldn't figure out the reason either.

 

[rockstarzzz]

Certain formats are not compatible with Office Mobile

 

[spaulagain]

Needs to be .docx file.

.doc files are a very old format now. There are plugins in old version of Office (2003) to support saving as .docx

While it would have been nice if the WP office app could open them, I understand MS not supporting it in efforts to push people to update to docx files. Also, it could be possible that the .docx files have a format that is critical to use on WP. So they may not have been able to make old doc files work.

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

Like Spaulagain said, that format is too old. I believe WP only supports office files from 2010 and newer.

 

[One Brain Cell]

I would contend that it isn't too old at all. People regularly send me .doc files and they open just fine on Windows phone. Many institutions still use versions of Office that are not recent enough to open .docx format. I work in a large hospital in the UK and 95% of the site is still using Office 2003, without the plugin to support saving as .docx

My beef is that here I am creating a .doc file and it seems that just because it's one branch of .doc file (created in Office Mac 2004), it won't accept it. These things need to be plain, if Windows Phone is able to open .doc files (which it is), then that should apply to all products Microsoft produced that were capable of creating .doc files.

Also, why would it not open an .rtf file? That is a common format that should open in virtually any word processor.

This isn't good enough.

 

[psiu_glen]

Have you posted on the MS support site?

Edit: where that is, not sure. Dunno what they call it today but should be findable I hope.

 

[impratick]

Wp8 having 2012 office!! So it supports .docx format!!

 

[One Brain Cell]

psiu_glen: No I haven't. This problem only popped up last night. It just got my goat that the problem occurs and the alert message tells me 'this file format is not readable on this phone'.

If you look on Nokia's website it tells you all the document formats readable on Office for Windows phone; and that raggedy old .doc format is one of them. So any Microsoft program capable of producing a .doc file should be compatible. This is their claim, it needs to be true.

 

[unstoppablekem]

Needs to be .docx file.

.doc files are a very old format now. There are plugins in old version of Office (2003) to support saving as .docx

While it would have been nice if the WP office app could open them, I understand MS not supporting it in efforts to push people to update to docx files. Also, it could be possible that the .docx files have a format that is critical to use on WP. So they may not have been able to make old doc files work.

Yeah, I know it stinks, as even pages for IOS offers it. Sigh.

 

[neo158]

My guess is that there's something wrong with the .doc format in Office Mac 2004, my solution would be to upgrade to a later version. I have the same issue with my CV which is a .docx file, I can view it on my phone but not edit it.

 

[eric12341]

WP does support opening of word 97-2003 files, they just cannot be edited. Maybe that specific file is corrupted somehow.

 

[rdubmu]

WP does support opening of word 97-2003 files, they just cannot be edited. Maybe that specific file is corrupted somehow.

WP can open and edit versions of documents created in office 07 or greater or in Docx format. Office 07 is about 6 years old btw.

Sent from my LG-D801 using WPCentral Forums mobile app

 

[tgp]

WP does support opening of word 97-2003 files, they just cannot be edited. Maybe that specific file is corrupted somehow.

Yes, this is what I've discovered. .doc & .xls are read only.

 

[neo158]

How are you getting the documents onto the phone?

 

[rdubmu]

How are you getting the documents onto the phone?

You can use skydive boxfiles (dropbox) or email

Sent from my LG-D801 using WPCentral Forums mobile app

 

[neo158]

You can use skydive boxfiles (dropbox) or email

Sent from my LG-D801 using WPCentral Forums mobile app

Or drag and drop from a PC or Mac ;-)

 

[tgp]

Yeah, I know it stinks, as even pages for IOS offers it. Sigh.

So does Quickoffice on Android. (Quickoffice was recently bought by Google and is now integrated into Android).

 

[aclink]

you will need to install a mobile word document viewer to read your word document in the phone. there are many apps that can help you open a word document. hope it is helpful to your situation.

 

[spaulagain]

you will need to install a mobile word document viewer to read your word document in the phone. there are many apps that can help you open a word document. hope it is helpful to your situation.

How will that help? This sounds like an issue with the file, not the OS or Office software on WP. If he needs to download a third party app to view a word document on Windows Phone, then there is something wrong with the file.