Encoding issues with Word 2008

[riverteeth]

Today I experienced my first compatibility problem between mac and windows that I can't easily figure out. I sent someone a word (.doc '97-2004) doc created on my mac, and they say that when they try to open it on their pc, they can't because of an "encoding" problem. I moved the doc from my OS X environment to XP via VMWare and "saved as" a new document, without changing any settings. I sent this new document from windows, and the recipient could open it without problem. I use office 2008 on my mac, and office 2007 on XP (Chinese version of both, don't know if that makes any difference), and I notice that there seem to be a lot more preferences related to saving on the XP version, including choosing what encoding to use.

The document in question included both English and French characters.

I thought I understoon encoding as far as email goes, but I don't really understand this problem. Can someone who's had a similar problem put this in simple terms for me, or direct me to a site with a more detailed explaination? Thanks!

 

[technologist]

Did you send this by email? Check the attachment formatting settings in your email client.

 

[riverteeth]

Yea, I did send it by email. But I can't understand why my email client, mail.app, would re-encode the document (a .doc file). And I can't find any "attachment formatting settings" under preferences.

 

[bobtomay]

I'd verify the first one was not a .docx file rather than .doc and you ran into someone that has not installed the converter into their old version of Office yet.

If this is a friend that you can run a test with and have them report back to you their findings - think I'd go into 2008 with the same file, do a save as Test1 in the old format, import that one into 2007 and save as Test2, then send them both. It's possible it was some glitch in the file upload/download and it became corrupted. Happens extremely rarely in my experience, but I have seen it.

edit: I'd do what tech suggests below first

 

[technologist]

Yea, I did send it by email. But I can't understand why my email client, mail.app, would re-encode the document (a .doc file).

Macintosh mail clients will often re-encode files to preserve Macintosh metadata when they're sent to other Mac users, unless you tell them not to.

And I can't find any "attachment formatting settings" under preferences.

In Mail, for some reason, the setting is under
Edit > Attachments > Always Send Windows Friendly Attachments.

Mail Help has more information