Word 97 hasn't been supported for over a decade now (11 years as of today!). I'm surprised any institution, especially a university, would still be using such antiquated software. Since support for Office 97 ceased years before Word 2007 came out, there won't be any patches for it that would make it compatible with the later versions.

In any event, the problem you're experiencing quite possibly has nothing to do with the file format but the fact you're using fonts with characters not supported in an Office 97 installation.

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]