I wrote a large document in Word 2003. I copied it to a CD. I now want to
work more on that document, but this old laptop (my only computer access
right now)only has WORD 97. To make things worse, my CD doesn't have the
document as a .DOC file, it says .WPS. When I open this file, it contains all
the text, but there is a little square between every character and space.

Is there any way I can recover my document? Please help. This is two years
of sermon notes I need to teach my students.

Thanks much!

Hello-

Sounds like the file on the CD is OK, but for some reason it was saved as a
MS Works document, not as a MS Word file.

First of all, _Do Not_ attempt to open the file directly from the CD.
Instead, copy it to the laptop's hard disk and try opening that copy. If the
symbols are still there, create another copy using Save As & make sure the
Save As Type (may be 'File Type' in Word 97) is set for Word Document (.doc).

I'm not sure that will completely resolve the issue, but if it doesn't there
are a number of folks around here who are more familiar with the mater than
I. Check back periodically for additional responses.

BTW- Might there not be a school, library or even a Kinko's available where
you could use a more current version of Word to save a new copy of the file?

Good Luck |:)

"nursefan64" wrote:

I wrote a large document in Word 2003. I copied it to a CD. I now want to
work more on that document, but this old laptop (my only computer access
right now)only has WORD 97. To make things worse, my CD doesn't have the
document as a .DOC file, it says .WPS. When I open this file, it contains all
the text, but there is a little square between every character and space.

Is there any way I can recover my document? Please help. This is two years
of sermon notes I need to teach my students.

Thanks much!

Thanks. Did all that, but still same problem. Gonna take 'puter and disk in
town and see if a guru there can help if I don't get any more replies here. I
did take the disk to another computer that has Word 2003, but same problem.
File on disk might be junk. I think I'm gonna be sick!

"CyberTaz" wrote:

Hello-

Sounds like the file on the CD is OK, but for some reason it was saved as a
MS Works document, not as a MS Word file.

First of all, _Do Not_ attempt to open the file directly from the CD.
Instead, copy it to the laptop's hard disk and try opening that copy. If the
symbols are still there, create another copy using Save As & make sure the
Save As Type (may be 'File Type' in Word 97) is set for Word Document (.doc).

I'm not sure that will completely resolve the issue, but if it doesn't there
are a number of folks around here who are more familiar with the mater than
I. Check back periodically for additional responses.

BTW- Might there not be a school, library or even a Kinko's available where
you could use a more current version of Word to save a new copy of the file?

Good Luck |:)

"nursefan64" wrote:

I wrote a large document in Word 2003. I copied it to a CD. I now want to
work more on that document, but this old laptop (my only computer access
right now)only has WORD 97. To make things worse, my CD doesn't have the
document as a .DOC file, it says .WPS. When I open this file, it contains all
the text, but there is a little square between every character and space.

Is there any way I can recover my document? Please help. This is two years
of sermon notes I need to teach my students.

Thanks much!

There have been many flavours of Works document format. To open any of them
in Word you need the correct filter. Most are linked from the downloads page
of my web site.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org




nursefan64 wrote:
Thanks. Did all that, but still same problem. Gonna take 'puter and
disk in town and see if a guru there can help if I don't get any more
replies here. I did take the disk to another computer that has Word
2003, but same problem. File on disk might be junk. I think I'm gonna
be sick!

"CyberTaz" wrote:

Hello-

Sounds like the file on the CD is OK, but for some reason it was
saved as a MS Works document, not as a MS Word file.

First of all, _Do Not_ attempt to open the file directly from the CD.
Instead, copy it to the laptop's hard disk and try opening that
copy. If the symbols are still there, create another copy using Save
As & make sure the Save As Type (may be 'File Type' in Word 97) is
set for Word Document (.doc).

I'm not sure that will completely resolve the issue, but if it
doesn't there are a number of folks around here who are more
familiar with the mater than I. Check back periodically for
additional responses.

BTW- Might there not be a school, library or even a Kinko's
available where you could use a more current version of Word to save
a new copy of the file?

Good Luck |:)

"nursefan64" wrote:

I wrote a large document in Word 2003. I copied it to a CD. I now
want to work more on that document, but this old laptop (my only
computer access right now)only has WORD 97. To make things worse,
my CD doesn't have the document as a .DOC file, it says .WPS. When
I open this file, it contains all the text, but there is a little
square between every character and space.

Is there any way I can recover my document? Please help. This is
two years of sermon notes I need to teach my students.

Thanks much!