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Posted to microsoft.public.word.docmanagement
Ed
 
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Default More on File Conversion opening text file

I started a new thread because this seems to be going in a totally different
direction. I have a Word XP user who opens a text file created by an
antiquated database report generator and gets the File Conversion - Choose
Format dialog box offering Word Default, MS-DOS, and Other, with a list of
choices. The list defaults to Unicode-7. Two other users have the exact
same system, same image with same programs, and open the same files, but do
not get the dialog.

The user does not have "Confirm conversions at open" checked. Using
Unicode-7 to open the file causes certain characters to drop out; opening
with Windows default or Unicode-8 seems to work fine. Also, the user can
open the text file in an older version of WordPerfect, save it as a Word
file, and then open it in Word and have everything okay.

Some questions:

(1) I read in several places that text files generated by some older
programs may not have been Unicode-compatible, and Word my have difficulty
recognizing such files. This report generator is older than "legacy". If
this might be the issue, is there a way we can verify it? And could we
expect more problems down the road due to the technology gap?

(2) Only this one user has this issue. The others do not. Bad or missing
converter, perhaps?

(3) Is it possible to set this to always open with Windows default or
Unicode-8? Or to write a macro that will always open the desired file with
Windows default or Unicode-8?

Ed