Suddenly, Word 2007 is in Compatibility Mode

Question

Suddenly, Word 2007 is in Compatibility Mode

Anonymous

I have been using Office 2007 Word for years with no compatibility problem with any Word documents, no matter how old they were. Suddenly, and by "suddenly" I mean this behavior never existed before this morning, all documents except newly created ones open in compatibility mode.

The onlything I have done differently than normal was this morning I ran a document compare between a Word 2003 document and a Word 2007 document. Now, and seemingly only since then, all my old documents are opened in compatibility mode. Instead of graphics, table of contents, page numbers, etc, tags are displayed and formatting is off. This was never the case prior to this morning. It's like running that compare woke some evil Word demon up. If I give up and convert a document the formatting is off, and tags instead of things like page numbers still show until I print.

So what changed? I did not touch Word options or make any Word configuration changes. The only thing I did differently was for the first time I can remember I used the compare feature and noticed seemingly all of the sudden I have this compatibility 'feature.' I have used this same installation of Word 2007 on my personal machine for approximately 6 years, and my last upgrade was a year ago to Windows 8. And I have automatic updates disabled to prevent new surprise features.

I have worked through the reams of internet posts on this topic and have subsequently checked that the file save option is set to docx (which it was), I have inserted the Dword "CompatMode=0" into the registry (there was not one prior), and I have renamed the normal.dot to another name. No difference.

I appreciate any help, but what I don't need is an explanation of how Word compatibility mode works. I would love to know why it all of the sudden came on, and how do I get back to not having it mess up all my older files? I cannot accept the stock answer I often see that 'this is just how Word 2007 works' because it didn't for me for years until this morning. Any help would be appreciated.

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3 additional answers

Answer 1

Sorry, that was a slip of the fingers and lack of proofreading -- the shortcut for field codes is Alt+F9.

The Developer tab and Design Mode button have nothing to do with field codes. They display a different kind of tag, around different elements in the document (XML, content controls, and ActiveX controls). I mentioned them only as an alternative in case the field code setting didn't solve the problem.

The Compatibility Mode issue is a little difficult to explain.

If the older files you referred to are in Word 97-2003 (*.doc) format, then Compatibility Mode is expected. That's the way Word is designed -- features that aren't supported by the older versions are disabled for these documents.
If they're in Word 2007 (*.docx) format and were created in Word 2007, that suggests that until recently your Normal template was one that was created during an upgrade from a previous version, and was itself in Compatibility Mode. If that template was replaced because the old one was deleted or renamed, documents created since then would be not in Compatibility Mode. This scenario is extremely unlikely, because all the documents you created since installing 2007 would have had "Compatibility Mode" in the title bar, and I think you would have noticed that.
You can convert any document from Compatibility Mode to regular mode by clicking the orb and selecting Convert. For details, read this article.

Answer 2

Anonymous

Seems to solve my prob as well. Thanks man!

Alexis D.

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Answer 3

Jay:

For all my older files next to the document title it is displaying: "[Compatibility Mode]". I tried going to uninstall and change, clicking "Repair" which had worked for at least one other sufferer, but no luck for me.

Alt-F8 brings up the Macros pop up, but you did point me to the answer on that:

click on the orb
select Word Options
select Advanced
and in Show Document Content the "Show field codes instead of their values" was checked.
I unchecked that and voila! No more 'tags'. Yay!

You are right, I don't have the developer tab on the ribbon, so I am at a loss how that got set because it would be impossible to accidentally go through all those steps and check that by accident. Prior to this I had not been in the Word Options settings for weeks. It's a mystery, but I am sure the issue lies between the seat and the keyboard somehow.

So thanks for the tip - that got me straightened out on the field codes. Now if only I could disable the compatibility mode for my older files like it was up until this morning.....

Answer 4

First, unless the title bar of Word shows "Compatibility Mode" next to each document's file name, you probably aren't seeing Compatibility Mode but something else. Compatibility Mode is something that occurs on a document-by-document basis, not for the entire program.

I can't quite tell from your use of the word "tags", but I suspect you accidentally turned on the display of field codes instead of field results. The keyboard shortcut Alt+F8 toggles that setting on and off. The shortcut is equivalent to going to the Advanced Options page and checking/unchecking the box for "Show field codes instead of their values".

The other possibility for "tags" is the Design Mode button on the Developer tab of the ribbon, but I'd bet that you don't even have the Developer tab displayed (it's disable by default), and there is no keyboard shortcut that changes that setting.

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Suddenly, Word 2007 is in Compatibility Mode

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