Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 18, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
One astute WordTips reader reported that they started receiving complaints from clients about their Word 97 document files. It seemed that whenever they opened a saved document, the files had "rubbish" added to the end of them.
Upon closer examination, it was found that the default file type for the Open dialog box had been set to Recover Text From Any File. This caused Word to ignore the formatting information it normally saves at the end of a file, and instead try to treat it as regular text. The result was that any time the client opened a file, the formatting was stripped from the document and appeared as "rubbish" in the document. The solution was to make sure the file type was instead set to Word Documents.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1260) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.
The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!
Word allows you to save your documents in a variety of different formats. You can specify the format when you actually ...
Discover MoreNeed to combine quite a few text documents? A macro may be the easiest way to stuff them all into a single Word document.
Discover MoreWhen you save your documents, you can specify that they be saved in a "read-only" format so that they cannot be changed ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)
Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.
Visit the WordTips channel on YouTube
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2025 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments