The joys of mixed platforms

Today I got my first taste of some of the problems of trying to live in harmony in a mixed platform office.  I got a mail message with three Microsoft Word files. It came from a colleague with a Windows machine.  I downloaded the files to my Powerbook and opened them with Word.  Though they were five pages long, I could see only one page.  Fortunately I had Nisus Writer Express on my computer so I opened the files with Nisus.  I could see all five pages.  Of course on the conference call, I mentioned this and got the inevitable "Well that's an Apple problem."

Obviously something has happened to my MS Office.  I downloaded the latest MS Office update tonight and that didn't fix the problem.  I tried downloading the files on my desktop Mac and had no troubles.  When the files opened in Word, I could see all five pages.  I also tried it with my Dell laptop and the Word files opened perfectly.  I might try Tiger Cache Cleaner.  Other than that I have no idea how to fix the problem.

It's hard to explain why one of my Mac systems with Word is misbehaving and the other is working fine.  The easiest thing for me is to carry my Dell laptop to work tomorrow.  Somehow I don't think I'm the only person who solves the problems facing a Mac user in a Windows world by switching to a PC.

I'm sure I'll figure the problem out, but I'm basically in a PC world so it will have to be my own expertise that rescues me.

Comments

[Jay]

I've seen similar problems porting a document between two Windows machines. Sometimes, rolling up the windows and restarting the car fixes the problem (ifunowutimean).

[appleguy4]

try trashing your preference files for Office. I have used that method before to fix multiple problems.
Mitch

[Peter]

Since you can open the files in Nisus Writer, try saving them in an other format that can be openned with word. This is an awkward, but helpful temorary fix. I occasionally have problems porting Word and PowerPoint files to Windows machines, but it is more often that the Windows machine can't open the Mac file.