Word 2007 "Black Boxes"

[Stuart_C]

Recently I have migrated all of our computers from Office 2002 to Office 2007 and have come across an odd problem. Opening an old .doc with embedded pictures some of the pictures display fine and some are just displayed as black boxes.

 

 

The document is a purchased 113 page document so it means no re-inserting the images and the pictures are not links. This occurs on the XP machines and my Vista one and I’ve updated the machines in the last 4 weeks so they are pretty much up to date, certainly they have Office SP1. Saving it as a .docx doesn't solve the issue, it just saves my boxes.

 

 

Any ideas?

Edited January 12, 2008 by Stuart_C

[TechSupp]

Can't offer a solution only sympathy I'm affraid as we have had that problem at one of my schools (they use office XP though and XP). Sometimes they send things to print and they just get a black box where the table or picture should be, then try it again and its just fine!

[tech_guy]

There is a known issue with the Adobe PDF plugin and Word 2007 that displays embedded pictures as black boxes but I don't think it sounds like the cause of your particular problem.

[bizzel]

Have you tried bringing up the image properties and scaling it to a slightly smaller size (try 99%) and seeing if they reappear. I've had that happen before and perhaps resizing caused word to somehow redraw the image differently.

 

Edit: Also, I've seen this crop up as a graphics driver problem. Do you get the same results on a different spec machine?

[SYNACK]

Could you open the file on an Office XP machine and then save the functioning document to PDF for future use. As long as they don't need to edit it that may solve your problem.

 

That or you could install the compatibility pack and try to save it as a .docx from Office XP if it lets you do this.

[Stuart_C]

Tried it from two different spec machines (oddly both with Adobe Acrobat) one XP one Vista with the same problem. However we have tried it on a machine without Acrobat and it doesn't work. Also I have just tried ANTOHER machine with the same problem.

 

I had seen some issues relating to acrobat but I have yet to install the PDF maker plug in. Whilst the document is most likely to have been opened on a machine with acrobat it occurs on all machines. It also goes wrong when the document is opened off the original CD on machiens with and without Acrobat.

 

Resizing the picture has no effect also.

 

The balck boxes occur on the print out but they occur on screen before printing (and with different printers selected)

 

Have just tried opening in on an Office XP machine and it works, save as .Docx no problems so far, try it on an Office 07 and the black boxes are back.

[SYNACK]

Maybe some of the images are embedded objects that require active x stuff or file interpreters that are not present on the later versions. If it opens fine on an XP machine I would try saving it to a PDF using something like CutePDF (I'm sure someone can provide an open source solution as well). This will act like a virtual printer that you can print the document including all of its images to a file. So long as it prints to a printer in XP it should work with this method and will convert everything into a readable format.

 

You may even be able to convert it back to an Office document using something like Open Office if required.

[CyberNerd]

I would try saving it to a PDF using something like CutePDF (I'm sure someone can provide an open source solution as well).

 

It's openoffice, but if he was using it, he wouldn't have the problem in the first place.

[SYNACK]

It's openoffice, but if he was using it, he wouldn't have the problem in the first place.

 

I was simply suggesting a way to convert it back to a editable type on a single computer so that it could be used without any extra hassle on all of the other computers.

 

I did this as it is still not clear whether they need to edit the document in future or not. By the sounds of the document relies on some unsupported embedded elements. These may not render on OpenOffice either so it is unclear whether using it would have solved his problem in the first place.

[CyberNerd]

These may not render on OpenOffice either so it is unclear whether using it would have solved his problem in the first place.

 

Indeed. This is the problem with Office2007. It has a lot of compatibility issues with other office software, and is one of the reasons for the current advice :

when specifying requirements, schools and colleges should

normally insist that suppliers provide an office productivity suite that is capable

of opening, editing and saving documents in the ODF format and setting ODF

as the default file format.

[Stuart_C]

Unfortunatly the document does need to be editable. It's actually part of a multi page (113) teaching resource dsigned to be used for creating answer sheets and lessons.

 

I've just sent it's owner off to talk to the people he purchased it from to see if there's an updated version (I.e. it is some kind of problem with the pictures and they've re-created a version that works).

 

It still doesn't answer the question of "why" though.

[SYNACK]

Indeed. This is the problem with Office2007. It has a lot of compatibility issues with other office software, and is one of the reasons for the current advice :

 

That is reasonable advice however it is off topic in this thread as the original post is about a problem .doc file that was purchased long before ODF existed and is still required. It may be a good idea to have a copy of it in ODF format once the immediate problem has been solved, if simply for future proofing. Though given the fact that they are in the process of moving to Office 2007 I don't see how that helps their immediate situation.

 

Lets keep the thread helpful and on topic least we require a fire extinguisher

[SYNACK]

It still doesn't answer the question of "why" though.

 

If you right click on one of the black boxes inside the document on a O2k7 box and hit properties does it bring up the picture properties dialog or a different one. If the pictures are something like drawings and charts then they were probably old Microsoft drawing objects or similar and support for those extensions may have been discontinued.

 

You may be able to save it to RTF and see if that makes the embedded objects into proper images.

Edited January 14, 2008 by SYNACK

[Stuart_C]

I'm afraid no joy on the properties as it's been removed from 2k7 and a no on the RTF also.

[SYNACK]

Just a thought, are you able to save a truncated test copy of the file with like one page with just a busted image on it and post it to the forum. That way we could have a look at it / to test it in different software and it shouldn't be a crazy file size or break copyright rules.

[Stuart_C]

OK,

Here you go, I've taken the document and using my copy of 2007 (Sp1 on Vista) i've saved it as a .doc file and and .docx just for fun.

 

For the sake of example I've included a working image, the black square should contain some blue warning signs about wearing protective clothing.

ProblemImages.zip

[TechMonkey]

Did you ever solve this Stuart? Don't think it is your problem but just recently I was making some worksheets and got this exact thing & I think the problem in the end was that Word wasn't interpretting transparent images correctly. I was copying and pasting images from web pages and some would work fine and others would just be black. After saving the images and inserting them all was ok.

 

No help if it is this as it would mean going through and resaving all the images but at least you would know!

[Stuart_C]

I never really found a solution but the teacher in question stopped bugging me so in a way...

 

Seriously though I did come accross this the other day by accident. I've not had chance to try it yet but given some of the earlier suggestions then it's a possibility.

[kfarrey]

We have some documents that were causing us the same problem. They were created in Word 2003 and show Black Boxes in place of the pictures in Word 2007. Our trouble is that we also have plans to migrate completely to Office 2007, and if we find more of these types of docs after migration is complete, the option to retrieve the pictures from the Word 2003 doc is not going to be available.

 

In my experience, "washing" a file though other programs has helped recover lost data a number of times, so, in this case, I tried saving the file in a number of different formats (htm, rtf, and finally saved it as an Adobe PDF) On Saving it as a PDF, the file opened in Acrobat Pro (which I happen to have and use). All the pictures were pictures again, instead of Black Boxes. Then, I Exported from Acrobat Pro to a Word document. When I opened the Word document, all the pictures were back. The only bad thing was that the text wrapping options had changed to "Square" in the Layout options. So, we will have to go back and change those settings.

 

On a first try at this, I had altered some of the formatting options for one of the pictures (changed size, position, color, set transparent color) and when I saved the file as a PDF, that picture only was still a Black Box. So, the moral of that story is to make no changes to the Black Boxes before "washing" the file through Acrobat Pro. Most of missing images were scans, so I don't know if that makes a difference.

 

The nice thing about this solution is that you don't still need to have an earlier version of Office to do it. The bad thing is that you do have to have Acrobat Pro.

 

Just another thing to try to fix your problem. :-)

[mandyvan]

none of the settings changes out there worked for me, and Microsoft's "workaround" is to open the document in Word 2003.

 

But this is what WORKED for me:

 

Open document in Word Pad

Copy picture from Word Pad

Paste into Word 2007

Right click the picture and choose Edit Picture, then the picture appears

Repeat copy/paste/edit for each picture

 

mandy