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Problems When Opening 2003 doc in 2007
by Angela S.
(Denver, CO USA)
All of our company's project reports are in Word 2003 and are heavily formatted. We are migrating to Word 2007 and we are running into formatting difficulties when opening the 2003 docs in 2007, particularly with page numbers.
Our reports are made up of sections which are each a separate document. Within each section, the pages are numbered to include the section (chapter) number (5-1, 5-2, etc.). When we open a doc in Word 2007 the section (chapter) number is no longer part of the page number! What is even weirder, is that I have opened a few documents in which the first few pages have the correct page formatting but then the remaining pages don't have the chapter number. There was no section break between the formatting change.
I tried deleting the page number and inserting a new one. I made sure to check the "include chapter numbers" box but I am still not able to get the chapter number number in the page number.
Currently I just go to a computer that still has Word 2003 to assist with editing and creating new reports but we are going to migrate all of our computers to Word 2007 in the very near future. This will mean that any report that we try to use as a template for a new report will have messed up page numbers. Help!
ANSWER:
Document conversion can often be a difficult task. Heavily formatted documents, complex documents, and documents with formatting or other errors may not convert properly to the Word 2007 format.
It appears you are converting master- and sub-documents. The master document feature in Microsoft Word is not always stable in the first place, so converting a master document will be prone to problems.
In the short-term, I recommend converting each sub-document individually, then reassembling the master document.
For your long-term goal of upgrading to Word 2007 and migrating all documents, I suggest you hire a specialist who can analyze your current documents and map out the migration process for you. I believe the consulting fees will cost much less than the man hours spent reformatting a large number of documents.
Microsoft Office 2010 is expected to be released in the first-half of 2010, so you may want to wait to upgrade additional systems until then. Then you won't be upgrading to soon-to-be-obsolete software.
Did you know that Microsoft provides a special site to assist small businesses? Visit the Microsoft Small Business Center Hub and submit your zip code to find a consultant in your area who can assist you with the migration process.
For Microsoft technical support, see my article, Microsoft Technical Support - Microsoft Word Support Options for information about how to find help directly from Microsoft. Not all support options require a fee, so I highly recommend that you utilize their support system until you can hire a consultant.
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