Here's a mystery:



A co-worker with an earlier version of Word sent me a docx file to edit (in compatibility mode) on my Word 2013.

I edited it. It looked perfect, so I sent it back to my co-worker.

He complained that the file looks corrupted on his machine with all kinds of nonsense or noise in the text.

So I got a copy of the file back that he said is full of corrupt text. I opened it on my Word 2013--and it still looks perfect to me!

I even tried opening this allegedly corrupt Word document with LibreOffice Writer--and it looks perfect with LibreOffice too!!
Next, I tried opening this allegedly corrupt Word document with WPS Office on my Android smartphone--and it looks perfect there too!!

What the heck could be going on here? Did Word 2013 do something to it so now it can't be read on earlier versions of Word? And if so, how come LibreOffice and WPS Office can read it perfectly? Or could something be wrong with my co-worker's installation of Word?

I'm stumped.


-- Steven L.

It may be that your friend's Office installation is faulty. They might try repairing their Office installation (via Start > Windows Control Panel > Programs > Programs & Features > Microsoft Office (version) > Change>Repair).

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

It may also be that your co-worker has display of non-printing formatting marks turned on and does not understand them. Is this the only document that is like this?
Showing non-printing formatting marks in Microsoft Word

Or even with Word's field code display toggled 'on'. Alt-F9 toggles it on/off as does checking/unchecking the 'Diplay field codes instead of their values' option, under File|Options|Advanced>Show Document Content.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]