MS Word claims TM file corrupted

[joredor]

In a trial project for a full transition to Linux, I'm editing a book in TextMaker 2018 Professional for Linux.

Both my author and my publisher use MS Word, so I need to make sure that files that I edit in TM will work on Word. Therefore, before sending the edit back to the author for fixes, I move the book file to a Windows PC and open the file in Word as a test. Unfortunately, when I do that I am getting the following error message in Word (2007):

Although Word complains, if I tell it to proceed the document will open, although I get the following message...

...and the filename is lost (it displays as "Document 1"). However, after a spot-check all my changes appear to still be there (I haven't performed a full side-by-side comparison).

Is this a known issue, and what can I do about it? One workaround might be to remember to rename the file before sending it on, but this can get tedious and it's not clear that the file contents are in fact the same.

If it is not a known issue, I wish to submit it as something to work on for the next version of TM. I really want to get away from Microsoft products, especially Windows 10, but this is not a viable strategy if I can't get my work done properly.

Thank you.

[joredor]

ADDITIONAL INFO: I tried to open in Word an earlier version of the document that was saved in TextMaker 2018 for Windows, and Word gave the same message about corruption in the contents. So it may not be strictly a Linux issue, but rather a TextMaker issue (?).

[joredor]

MORE NEW INFO: This seems to be a .DOCX vs. .DOC issue. I saved the problem document as a .DOC file in TM for Linux and it opened fine in Word for Windows.

The file is much larger in .DOC format, but it opened without issue in Word on two different Windows computers.

[Michael Uplawski]

MORE NEW INFO: This seems to be a .DOCX vs. .DOC issue. I saved the problem document as a .DOC file in TM for Linux and it opened fine in Word for Windows.

The file is much larger in .DOC format, but it opened without issue in Word on two different Windows computers.

If the DOCX file format is causing compatibility problems, they are usually related to the OOXML used in one of both programs. As there do not appear to be many reports about this kind of incompatibility (apart from my own), I venture that you found something by applying a style or using structures that TextMaker is translating to XML in a different way than Word expects. All my phrases must be enriched with a few “nowadays”, “current versions”, “depending on the context”... I let you do that.

If your document is of considerable size, it could be a chore to try and identify the one or few elements which are the origin of the problem. But maybe you are already aware of something that you (are proud of but) believe to be “unusual” or a nifty use of some program feature in TextMaker, so it has escaped most users' attention up to now and has never been brought to the attention of the SoftMaker team.

I find the detour via doc a valid solution. Having dug into OOXML and OpenDocument for a while, I am amazed about how few difficulties of this kind we encounter.

[kraut2english transformation in progress]

[joredor]

Thanks for the info. It IS remarkable how closely they match, given all the possible hurdles. I don't remember doing anything exotic with the file.

That said, unfortunately it looks like the .DOC workaround may not be viable either: I saved the most recent edit as both .DOC and .DOCX, and sent the former to the author last night. He wrote back this morning to say that all the comments and questions in the Markup Area were gone. And sure enough, when I checked the file in TM for Linux (where it was originally saved), they weren't there. (They still are in the .DOCX version.)

It looks like I'd actually have better luck using the .DOCX file and then alerting authors and others that they will see a bogus "corruption" message when they open the document but to go ahead. Thing is, they would have to give the file a name because it will come out as "Document 1." This of course doesn't sound like a long-term solution, so I hope that the SM team will look into it.

[miguel-c]

Hi,
1. could you post the DOCX here, or send it to forum (at) softmaker.de?
2. could you give us instructions on what you did to make the comments vanish in DOC?

[joredor]

Hi Miguel,

Is the email address "forum(at)softmaker.de" a private address? The document is confidential material (a book manuscript in progress), so I would rather not send it somewhere where it could be seen publicly.

What I did that made the comments disappear was simply to save the .DOCX file in .DOC format (Word 97-2003), then reopen it. In TM Professional 2018 for Linux, the comments were still there so long as the newly saved document stayed open, but the next time it was opened in the same program, the comments were gone. I just now verified this sequence by trying it again.

I just tried doing the same thing in TM Professional 2016 for Windows, and this time the comments did not disappear. In case it helps to find the root of the problem, please note that both the platform (Windows vs. Linux) and the edition (2016 vs. 2018) are different.

[miguel-c]

forum (at) softmaker.de is not read by everyone but me

[joredor]

Thank you, I've just sent you a copy of the problem file at that e-mail address.

Let me know what you discover, thanks!

[miguel-c]

Hi joredor,
1. when I saved your file as .DOC in both TextMaker v966 for Linux and Windows, the comments disappeared. We're now going to address this issue.
2. Also in your 1st post you mentioned that when you saved it as a .DOCX file, MS Word mentioned the file was damaged. However with me it doesn't happen with Word 2019. What version of Word gives you the error message?

[joredor]

That's great news! I'm glad that my work may contribute to making TextMaker an even better product than it already is.

The issue with opening the .DOCX file is happening on MS Word 2007. I tried it on a Vista and a Windows 7 PC and the same thing happened on both of them.

Unfortunately, I don't have here a more recent edition of Office on which to test the .DOCX file, but I can probably find a trusted person with a newer version of Office to let me try this on their computer.

[miguel-c]

Hi Joredor, the missing comments issue you reported has been fixed and the fix will be included in the next service pack.

[joredor]

Hi miguel-c,

I can confirm that the latest Service Pack fixed the issue with the comments disappearing when saving the .DOCX file in .DOC format.

Thank you very much to yo uand to the softMaker team for taking care of this issue!