Office 365 Questions

google has some answers

How old are these Word files? MS considers some older files as a possible security risk, so won't open by default. You need to configure settings to allow access to older Word docs. I would then save these in updated Word formats.

They are WORD 2016 documents. Some were saved to my flash drives in the last month or two.

Then they should open. I'm wondering if the Word files somehow got corrupted when saved to the flash drive.

Did you try to open these files from your PC, not from your Flash drive? You can also get a free MS Doc viewer app, or the free Libre
or Open Office suite to see if they will open the files.

I run Office 365.
I have massive amounts of old documents, some going back into the 90s.
As I go through this stuff to purge it, I open Word, Excel, PP and Pub files with no problems and no errors.

Perhaps, as mentioned, it's something in your settings. I am running all defaults on mine and it has never refused to open files.

If the files are corrupted, and if you can run run Unix or Linux, you may at least be able to see the unformated text in filename by using the Unix or Linux command 'hexdump'.

hexdump -C filename > dumpfilename

In Unix, the above would write a dump of filename to dumpfilename.
In Linux, use the option -Canonical instead of -C.
The option causes any printable characters to be displayed alongside each line of the hexadecimal.

The dumpfilename produced by a Word file will contain a lot of gobbledegook in addition to the raw unformatted text.

Added on edit. Sorry, Linux also uses -C. (I use Unix, and don't know Linux.)

If you place those documents back onto your computer, can you open them then? Maybe you have security set up on your flash drive that is preventing MS Office from opening them directly from the flash drive.

Thanks for all the responses!

When I try to SAVE AS on my new computer with Microsoft 365, I have the following choices: 1. Save a copy online 2. Rename 3. Download as PDF 4. Download as ODT.

Yesterday, I wanted to print one of documents on my flash drive, so I used it on my husband's computer, and had no trouble opening it and printing the document. He has WORD 2016 Teacher and Student, which I had on my old laptop.

I guess I could move my flash drive to my husband's computer and save the documents I want to keep to ONE Drive, then they should be available on my computer. But I wish there was a better solution.

lovemountains wrote:
Thanks for all the responses!

When I try to SAVE AS on my new computer with Microsoft 365, I have the following choices: 1. Save a copy online 2. Rename 3. Download as PDF 4. Download as ODT.

Yesterday, I wanted to print one of documents on my flash drive, so I used it on my husband's computer, and had no trouble opening it and printing the document. He has WORD 2016 Teacher and Student, which I had on my old laptop.

Something isn't right..

ODT files are Apache OPEN OFFICE document file format (say that twice fast).. SEE HERE for more details.

While MS Office can save ODT, it is not the "default" format of MS Office.. DOCx is the default of newer MS Office word docs.. The default may have been changed by accident..

You can save to PDF and print it if you like also..

Saving to One drive might be forced now days as MS wants everyone to use it.. I suspect that the default drive location may have gotten changed by accident like the file format.. But you should be able to change that also..

See HERE for detail on save as..

You should be able to select "This PC" instead of One Drive..