Word 2010 save bug?

Question

I have an Oracle application that launches Word 2010 on Windows 7 to create a text file. Users are supposed to enter in information into the text file, and click the save button; Word is expected to save it as a pure ASCII text file (no images, etc.). With Word 2010, after clicking save, we are getting a dialog box that says:

"s5a8.2.TMP may contain features that are not compatible with Works 6 - 9 Document format. Do you want to save the document in this format?

To save, click Yes.

To preserve formatting, click No. Then save a copy in the latest Word format."

The dialog box that came up after clicking "save" when we had Word 2003 before said something about "Plain text files" instead of "Works 6 - 9 Document format".

I don't understand why this dialog box is coming up. Nothing is entered into the document except plain text. If I click "yes", Word appears to save the file. Then, through Oracle, I re-open the file, and Word launches and shows the "File Conversion - s5a8.2.TMP" dialog box, giving me an option to "Select the encoding that makes your document readable ..." option, with "Japanese (Shift-JIS)" selected as default. If I select "Windows (Default)", the text that shows up looks like gibberish.

The Word option "File/Options/Save/Save files in this format" is set to "Word Document (*.docx)". Changing this to txt is not an option.

I don't see anywhere where "Works 6 - 9 document format" was ever selected in Word 2010, so why or how is Word automatically choosing that format?

Any idea why this is going on, and how to fix these two problems?:

1. Why is Word attempting to save plain text docs as "Works 6 - 9", and
2. If Word does save it theoretically as a "Works 6 - 9" document, why doesn't Word open it correctly and instead goes to the file converter?

I've already updated Office to SP2, and deleted the normal.dotm file without change. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Thanks Doug Robbins,

The filenames are created by the Oracle application, and then the Oracle application calls on Word to open that file.

If the conversion box appears in Word 2010, why doesn't it also appear in Word 2003? Is this new behavior on the part of 2010?

Is there a way to use VBScript to create a macro button to force Word 2010 to save the document as a text file which would also bypass the "Works 6 - 9 Document format" dialog box warning upon save?

Thanks again!

Answer 2

I believe the reason that Word 2010 displays the conversion box is caused by the period in the filename.  From where do the filenames s5h4 and s5a8.2 come?  Can you eliminate the period between the 8 and the 2?

It would be best if the code specified the format in which the document is to be saved, with the appropriate file extension (.txt)

wdFormatDOSText	4	Microsoft DOS text format.
wdFormatDOSTextLineBreaks	5	Microsoft DOS text with line breaks preserved.

Also note that in Office 2010, the SaveAs command was replaced by SaveAs2

Answer 3

I just uninstalled the Word 2010 portion of Office 2010, and reinstalled Word 2003 and configured Oracle to launch Word 2003 instead of 2010.

Word 2003, when saving, does report "plain text":

"s5h4.TMP may contain features that are not compatible with Plain Text format. Do you want to save the document in this format?"

vs Word 2010 behavior:

""s5a8.2.TMP may contain features that are not compatible with Works 6 - 9 Document format. Do you want to save the document in this format?"

Why the difference?

Answer 4

Thanks Stefan, I don't think the Oracle app should be a factor, since all it does is create a blank temporary file and directs Word 2010 to open it.

I'm just perplexed as to how Word decided on its own to save the file as a "Works 6 - 9 Document"

Answer 5

I'm not familiar with the application you mention, but you should contact the manufacturer and find out if there is an updated version for recent versions of Word.