IT Queries: Computer problems answered

I’m working in an office and we’ve been having trouble sending attached documents via email. We have a Windows XP, Professional, version 2002, service pack 3. The computer itself is a Dell Dimension DXP061, Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU.

When we try to send a Word file from our office system to a computer outside the network via email, the document won’t open. A message comes up saying that the file is “corrupt.” This has happened twice, both times with a Microsoft Word document.

The documents were very similar in that they were roughly 16-20 pages long with a lot of hyperlinks and a lot of the text pasted on.

The strange thing was that the first time this happened, we resent the same document saved as a different file and were able to open it. Also, in between these two instances, we’ve sent numerous word documents and were able to open them. No word yet on the second time.

We resent it, cut and pasted onto a different file, but the person we sent it to has not gotten back to us yet. What do you think the problem is?

It sounds like the problem is your version of Microsoft Word. If you are using Office 2007, this is a common problem and we have the fix on a previous page.

Another thing to consider is the size and the nature of the pasted information. Word isn’t efficient at stripping out unnecessary code so something you might paste from another document may contain a pile of redundant formatting instructions which don’t apply to the new document.

If you are pasting into a Word document it’s often handy to paste into Notepad, which strips out the unnecessary formatting, and then cut and paste into Word.

The problem with that solution is you’ll lose any formatting and fancy features so it may not be suitable if you are pasting anything other than text.

Finally, the hyperlinks may not be helping. If you have a number of links that don’t work, this can cause problems for the recipient’s system.

The simplest solution to problems like this is to send the document in a .pdf format which not only preserves the layout but is more reliable and secure.

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