Word errors

Question

In my office, we work off of dropbox to get reports to the managers.  I use a pc and my manager uses a Mac.  Here recently after he has done edits in my word document in dropbox I get this error after he sends it to me. below is the message I get every word document he opens and edits.  I have done everything the forums have recommended with the trust center and I don't see the unblock message most sites talk about in the properties windows.  I have uninstalled and reinstalled dropbox.  The one thing I would like to point out is older word documents that the manager hasn't updated recently, I can still open them from dropbox with no problem.  It seems that the errors start when he updates a document in the past couple of weeks.  

Answer 1

Hi Jon Moncrief,

Per your description, your documents can't be opened after they are edited by your Manager.

The issue seems to resides on your manager’s computer/software. You may ask him to try the following suggestions to see if it fixes the issue.

1. Check the Office version first, it’s always recommended to keep Office updated to the latest version.

Starting up in safe modeto exclude background programs’ interference:

Step1. Start or restart Mac, then immediately press and hold the Shift key. The Apple logo appears on the display.

Step2. Release the Shift key when you see the login window.

To leave safe mode, restart Mac without pressing any keys during startup.

Besides, I would like to give you some suggestions as below for recovery purpose on your side:

(Before you start, please backup all these problematic documents to avoid the possibility of data loss)

1. Try to change your document from .docx to .doc and open it to see the result.
2. Disable the anti-virus program and let your manager send you edited documents in dropbox, check if the problem persists.
3. Click File > Open > Browse and then go to the location or folder where the problematic documents is stored. Click the file you want, and then click the arrow next to Open, and click Open and Repair.
4. If there are just text content in these documents, Open Word -> Create a blank page -> Insert -> Object -> Text from file -> Go to the folder or location of the documents, select one and insert it.

From my research, Dropbox also has similar file version history feature like OneDrive. You can check if that could help reduce the loss.

To test the problematic file further, I've send you a PM(private message), please create a simple test document, ask your manager to edit it, if the issue persists, send me the problematic test document via the PM link as below.

Click to see the private message.

Best Regards,

Hugo

Answer 2

If you send me a copy of one of the documents, referencing this thread in the covering email message, I will investigate the issue.

Answer 3

Sorry for the late reply...I opened the document like you said to and repaired the document.

Answer 4

The Repair option is a button, not an arrow, in the lower right corner of the File > Open dialog