Converting from Word 97 to 2007 breaks bookmarks

[Dragana]

I have a 1000-page doc originally created in Word 1997, which I need to convert to Word 2007. However, in the process, the cross-references become ‘Error! Reference source not found.’
*
The original doc has a bunch of tables, bookmarks, and different styles. It's currently a little over 14MB in size.

 

[macropod]

Hi Dragana,

Simply opening a document with Word 2007 won't of itself break any internal links. If they break upon opening, the problem is with
the original document. Similarly, refreshing the links in Word 2007 and/or saving the document in the docx format won't of itself
break the links. If you've changed operating system and the document has a hyperlink base set, that might break the links, since
user file paths in Vista, for example, differ from the paths in earlier versions.


--
Cheers
macropod
[Microsoft MVP - Word]


"undisclosed" wrote in message news:f7b21fc8b4014832e10ec132908abc00@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> I have a 1000-page doc originally created in Word 1997, which I need to
> convert to Word 2007. However, in the process, the cross-references
> become 'Error! Reference source not found.'
> *
> The original doc has a bunch of tables, bookmarks, and different
> styles. It's currently a little over 14MB in size.
>
>
> --
> Dragana

 

[Dragana]

Hi,

Thank you for that reply. As it turned out, it helped me solve the problem, but for a different reason than you think!

I have both Word 97 and 2007 installed on my machine, and used 97 when working with that particular document. Whenever I accidentally opened it in 2007 I'd get a pop up window warning me Word had to repair some errors.

Searching for "Error!" yielded those broken links. I always assumed they were the result of conversion, but after reading your message, I decided to really investigate every single one of the broken links, and guess what: they were in the original document in Word 97 too! So, nothing to do with the conversion. Once I fixed the broken links in the original, I tried converting again, and once again got an error on some tables that needed to be repaired, but the result is actually just fine, there is nothing broken in there at all.

All it took was a little confidence, and I got that from knowing Word 2007 wouldn't break the links. So, thank you very much!

 

[macropod]

Hi,

If Word 2007 is warning you that there is a problem with the tables, I think you can be fairly confident that there is a problem,
even if you can't see it at the moment. The safest course of action is probably to:
1. convert all the tables to text,
2. insert an empty paragraph at the end of the document
3. copy all of the document, except the new paragraph into a new document
4. close the old document
5. re-convert the 'text' tables back to tables
6. save the new document.
Once you're happy that the new document has the correct layout, etc, delete the old document.

--
Cheers
macropod
[Microsoft MVP - Word]


"undisclosed" wrote in message news:c7776050675b420e581b558edf7d0d64@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> Hi,
>
> Thank you for that reply. As it turned out, it helped me solve the
> problem, but for a different reason than you think!
>
> I have both Word 97 and 2007 installed on my machine, and used 97 when
> working with that particular document. Whenever I accidentally opened it
> in 2007 I'd get a pop up window warning me Word had to repair some
> errors.
>
> Searching for "Error!" yielded those broken links. I always assumed
> they were the result of conversion, but after reading your message, I
> decided to really investigate every single one of the broken links, and
> guess what: they were in the original document in Word 97 too! So,
> nothing to do with the conversion. Once I fixed the broken links in the
> original, I tried converting again, and once again got an error on some
> tables that needed to be repaired, but the result is actually just fine,
> there is nothing broken in there at all.
>
> All it took was a little confidence, and I got that from knowing Word
> 2007 wouldn't break the links. So, thank you very much!
>
>
> --
> Dragana