This post covers frequently asked questions in the microsoft.public.word.* newsgroups. I have compiled this FAQ with the assistance of the other Word MVPs, and it is intended to help you with your MS Word problems. Please reply by email to jonathanwest@riviera.fr if you have any suggestions for improvements. Getting feedback helps keep the FAQ up to date. Advice to posters === There are a few things you can do which will help people answer your questions. - Have a look at the post titled "The Rules of Netiquette" regularly posted in microsoft.public.netiquette, and follow the suggestions given in it. - Keep your message as short as possible consistent with a full description of the problem. In particular, avoid using HTML formatting, and don't attach files. They rarely add substantially to peoples' ability to answer your question. - Make sure you mention which version of Word you are using. The answers to questions are often different depending on the version. - If you are experiencing an error, make sure you give as full a description of the error as possible, including the full text of any error message, and a description of what you were doing when the error hit. - Don't post to microsoft.public.word.programming, microsoft.public.word.nonwindows, microsoft.public.word.dos or microsoft.public.word.general. These groups are no longer supported from the main Microsoft news server, and orphan copies of them elsewhere (e.g. on CompuServe) will not reach as many people. Frequently Asked Questions - General === Q. Word always forces me to save documents as templates Q. Word won't let me close a document without saving it Q. Some of the menus have disappeared Q. I get WordBasic errors when I open or save a Word document A. These are all common symptoms of one or other of the Word macro viruses. There are a depressingly large number of these out there (I shan't say how many precisely, because I would have to update this post every time I sent it out). Get a good anti-virus program, and use it to clean your system. Most of the major vendors offer free trial versions for download. --- Q. How can I get a spell/grammar checker in French/German/another language? A. Alki software sell the Microsoft approved proofing tools in many languages. Go to http://alki.com to see if they have one for you. --- Q. How can I import files from "format x" to MS Word? A. This depends on the format you have. First step is to check if you have done a full installation of Word, as not all the conversion programs are installed in the typical setup. Second, go to the MS web site at http://www.microsoft.com/word/work_95.htm, & see if there is your format listed in the "Supplemental Converters". Third, see if the other program will export to Word or to some format which Word will recognize. Fourth, try some third-party file converters. A search on the Web will usually bring up the major vendors. A particularly common format asked for is Lotus Word Pro. So far as I am aware, the only way to import such files is to save them in another format using Word Pro, and then open the file in Word. --- Q. After editing a file a lot, and saving many times, my document is corrupted and I can't open it. A. You probably have Fast Saves switched on. Go to Tools Options Save, and turn off Fast Saves, it is the most frequent cause of document corruption. To recover a damaged file, try the following sources of advice. Word 6 or 7, http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q87/8/56.asp Word for Mac, http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q145/3/90.asp Word 97, http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q156/5/73.asp --- Q. I am getting a lot of problems trying to get the master document feature to work. A. You and many others. In all versions of Word prior to Word 97 it was bugged. Don't yet know the state of it in Word 97. Either try to work in a single long document (remember to take backups frequently!) or use the Tech-tav macro suite by Yisrael van Handel instead. To get the tech-tav macro suite, send an email to tech-tav@netmedia.net.il --- Q. When I save a document as HTML, some of the formatting is lost. A. Sorry, this is a limitation of HTML, which was never designed to be a WYSIWIG format. Also, please remember that Word is not an HTML editor, it is a word-processor with an HTML export capability. It is therefore limited in what it can do. --- Q. Word comes up with a "missing dynalink" error when I try to open it. A. You probably did an installation of some software recently, where not all your applications were closed down first. If you can remember which software it was, then you can try reinstalling it, making sure that all other applications are closed first. Alternatively, rename the following files in your Windows\System directory and reinstall Word. You may need to rename these in DOS since some will be in use once Windows is started.    Compobj.dll    Ole2.dll    Ole2conv.dll    Ole2disp.dll    Ole2nls.dll    Ole2prox.dll    Storage.dll    Typelib.dll --- Q. Very few fonts are available to Word, but other applications can see them OK. What's happened? A. You need to set a default printer in Word. Word works very hard to show on screen only what it thinks it can print. If it doesn't know about any attached printers, it doesn't think it can print very much! --- Q. I can't get page numbers to print. They show up OK on the Print Preview. A. You probably have an inkjet printer. They often have a slightly larger than normal unprintable area at the bottom of the page. Move your bottom and footer margins up a bit (probably to at least 0.67" from the edge of the page), and all will be well. --- Q. I can't get my installation of Internet Assistant to work right! A. Make sure you have the right versions of Word & IA. These are the correct versions. Word 6 - IA 1.0z Word 7 - IA 2.04z Word 6 for NT - IA 2.04z Word 6 for Mac - IA 2.0z Word 97 - NONE NEEDED! Word 97 has HTML editing features built-in The English version of IA for Macintosh works only with the US English version of Word, not with any International English versions. Make sure that you have uninstalled any earlier versions before installing the latest. Frequently Asked Questions - Word 97 === Q. I get many Invalid Page Faults when running Word 97 A. You probably need to update your graphics card driver. Go to the web site of your graphics card manufacturer and download the latest version. If this doesn't work, then have a look at the detailed troubleshooting guide at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q168/1/98.asp. --- Q. Embedded graphics get replaced by a big Red X Q. Linked graphics don't stay the size I set them to A. These are bugs in Word 97. You need to get the Service Release 1 for Office 97, which MS says corrects this. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/office/office97/servicerelease/default.htm to download it. There are now also versions of SR-1 for many other languages. Look up on the MS Web site for yours. --- Q. The INS key doesn't work any more! What happened? A. MS changed the default operation of the INS key because they got a lot of complaints from people who hit it by mistake when aiming for the DEL key, & who didn't realize what had happened. You can restore the original operation as follows - Go to Tools Customize. - press the "Keyboard" button - in Categories, select "All commands" - in Commands, select "Overtype" - move to "Press new shortcut key" and press "Ins" - press the Close button The default will also change back if you install the SR-1 patch. --- Q. QuickView doesn't work any more since I installed Word 97. A. Word 97 has a new file format, which QV doesn't know how to open. If you buy QuickView Plus from http://www.inso.com, it has been upgraded to recognize Word 97. --- Q. I want to convert my WordPerfect macros, is there a way of doing this automatically? A. No, but the article at http://www.microsoft.com/WordDev/Articles/wpconv.htm will give you guidance, and includes a link to a program which will allow you at least to extract the macro code to a text file. --- Q. How do I get Word to change the language for the spell check? (I already have the correct spellchecker installed) A. You need to format your documents to use the language you prefer. Select the text, then Tools/Language/Set Language. You can also set the default language by setting the language for the Normal style in your templates. With Office 97 there's an additional complication: the language setting in Control Panel/Keyboard/Language *must* be the same as the default you want in Word in order for the default to work. If you use a different keyboard layout than this language, click on the Properties button in this dialog box to select the appropriate keyboard layout. Frequently asked questions - signatures! === Q. What is an MVP? A. Microsoft Valued Professional. As a rule, Microsoft employees don't answer questions in these newsgroups (though they do monitor the groups quite closely, and take notice of what is said). The groups are peer-to-peer groups where users swap knowledge & ideas. Microsoft recognizes a limited number of volunteers who regularly answer a lot more questions than they post, and these volunteers get some special privileges to help them in this work. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/supportnet/supportpartners/mvps/brochuregeneral.htm for more details. If you are interested in becoming an MVP, the best thing to do is simply to start answering questions. You will probably get noticed soon enough. Useful Resources === Microsoft places Free add-ons, updates etc. for Word - http://www.microsoft.com/officefreestuff/word/ Microsoft home page for Word - http://www.microsoft.com/word/ Microsoft home page for Office for Macintosh - http://www.microsoft.com/macoffice/ Microsoft FAQ page for Word for Windows - http://www.microsoft.com/MSWordSupport/content/faq/default.asp Microsoft FAQ page for Word for Macintosh - http://www.microsoft.com/MacOfficeSupport/macword/content/faq/default.asp Microsoft Knowledge Base, search for answers to problems with MS products - http://support.microsoft.com/support/c.asp Other places Dian Chesney's home page, lots of good tips http://www.mousetrax.com Jeff Vandervoort's home page - WordBasic information http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Jeff_Vandervoort Ron Wodaski's home page - Internet Assistant ideas http://www.olympus.net/biz/mmad/ia/iafaq.htm -- regards Jonathan West - Word MVP Multilinker - Automated generation of hyperlinks in Word Conversion to PDF & HTML http://www.multilinker.com