My newly-purchased MS Word 2010 fails to load ODT files validated by the http://tools.services.openoffice.org/odfvalidator/.

It says: "The file Genesis.odt cannot be opened because there are problems with the contents."  Details: "The file is corrupt and cannot be opened."  It then says "Word found unreadable content in Genesis.odt.  Do you want to recover the contents of this document.  If you trust the source of  this document, click Yes."

The recovered document seems OK except for the page number on the last page and references to headings.

The document displays without problem on OpenOffice 3.3. RC.

For what it's worth:  I'm the web publisher of a charitable, non-denominational site http://www.tanach.us giving the Hebrew bible in Hebrew.  I'll soon be providing ODT files to users. Of course, I'm recommending that they use OpenOffice.  But I'd like to provide compatibility information  for those who already bought MSWord.  Can you please help?

Chris Kimball

 

Hi Chris,

This issue may be caused by corruption of 'Genesis.odt' file.

Resolution:
To isolate the this error message and to access the data saved in 'Genesis.odt' file:

Use 'Open and Repair' feature to repair the document. To do so, click File, then click Open. Choose the file that you wish to repair and click on 'Open and Repair'.
If the problem persists, then restore the data from an updated backup.
In case of no backup, you can Repair Word File using a commercial software.

Such repair tools can Repair Word File after any logical crash. These tools are easy to understand and do not require any former technical understanding.

Hope that helps.

This happens even on a brand new blank ODT.  Just make an ODT, save it. Then try to open in word and you get that message.

it seems the issue is that MS doesnt fully support ODT 1.2.   If you set your prefs in Libreoffice to generate 1.0/1.1 odt files, MS opens them without a dialog.  

Not sure if those older odt formats support all of the features in Libreoffice though.

Other than the dialog, when using ODT 1.2, I really never saw any issues with what I opened in MS Word.

I tried repairing the file, as you suggest. While the file opens, when I save it, immediately after having completed the repair and without having made any edits, I get a warning that the document may contain features that are not compatible with the format.

I don't understand why, since there were no problems reported with the repair.

The error message does not provide any details of what features may not be supported or any indication, specifically, of why it is being presented. It doesn't say what format 'this format' is. The only option is to not show the message again and to save the file or not. If I don't save the file, I don't know what I might do to fix the problems that repair failed to fix.

The resulting file has lost formatting of the table of contents. I didn't look at it beyond that. With errors or warnings on both opening and saving the file and incompatibility on an unknown set of features, according to the warning when saving the file, I really don't trust Microsoft Word to work with ODT files.

Do you know if Microsoft has any plans to improve the handling of ODT files?

I prefer to use Libre Office myself, but sometimes people who use Microsoft Office ask for advice. I usually tell them to use Libre Office instead, unless they have a particular requirement for Microsoft Office compatibility. None the less, it would be helpful if Microsoft Office supported ODT format.