Rubbish In Your File

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 18, 2020)

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.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Changing the Perspective of Your Chart

Microsoft Graph can be a handy way to add quick and dirty charts to your document. When working with 3-D charts, you can ...

Discover More

Inserting a Picture in Your Worksheet

Worksheets can contain more than just text and numbers. Here's the low-down on the different types of pictures you can ...

Discover More

Restrictions on Hyperlinks

Word allows you to add active hyperlinks to your document. If the hyperlinks don't work properly when you follow them, ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2021 or Microsoft 365. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word Step by Step today!

More WordTips (menu)

Saving Documents Faster

If you are using Word versions 97 through 2003, there's a setting you can make that will allow you to save your documents ...

Discover More

Combining Word Documents

At some point you may want to insert one Word document inside another Word document. An easy way to do this is to use the ...

Discover More

Determining the Length of a Non-Document Text File

If you use a macro to create and work with text files, you can find out the length of those files using a simple command. ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is four more than 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

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.