[ms office - 2016] Old Document Opens As Squares

[CAM]

Here's a curious one.

 

I have been given an "important document" that belongs to a member of SLT. It hasn't been opened since 2013 and Windows is reporting it's in Word 97-2003 format. When I open it in Word 2016 it appears as squares with no option to convert the document. If I save it as TXT I get nothing but 400kb of blank space. If I try Recover Text From any File I get nothing at all.

 

I also tried opening it in Office 365 through myUSO and it just says it cannot open the file.

 

Any ideas please? I'm starting to think the file is just corrupt and unopenable.

[elsiegee40]

Have you tried Open Office?

[CAM]

I'll ask if anyone has that at home as I can't install it on my office PC.

[Steve21]

Have you enabled the option in word to confirm file format conversion on opening? Some of the old ones won't show up otherwise if it's not recognised

 

Steve

[CAM]

Have you enabled the option in word to confirm file format conversion on opening? Some of the old ones won't show up otherwise if it's not recognised

 

Steve

 

Doesn't do anything. I think it's just stuffed.

[Passat1983ICTech]

I'll ask if anyone has that at home as I can't install it on my office PC.

 

just pm you