word documents appear as "unix executable files" and cannot be opened

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Level 1

4 points

word documents appear as "unix executable files" and cannot be opened

Hi: I am running 10.5.5 on my Intel Imac. The problem is that many old MS Word documents have suddenly flipped into documents with no file extension, but which are identified in the Preview window as "unix executable files."

I've had this happen before, and all I had to do was add the .doc extension for them to become Word documents again. This time there is nothing I can do to change them over. I have tried opening them from Word, from Pages, from Text Edit, with no results. (I have also used all the possibilities available from Word as well).

There doesn't seem to be any pattern -- random documents in the same folder, created at the same time and modified at the same time, appear as unix files, while the others seem fine. Any ideas?

<Post Relocated by Moderator>

iMac (new, Intel), Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Posted on Feb 9, 2009 6:30 PM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

215,706 points

Feb 9, 2009 9:23 PM in response to NSH

This is the iWeb forum. You should post your question in the Leopard forum. But I'll give a try at a possible solution:

1 - check the Finder preferences and make sure you have the option to show file extensions checked.
2 - select one of the Work files, type Command+i and in the Info window go to the Open With menu and select Word as the default application. Then click on the Apply to All... button.

OT

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Answer 2

NSH Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 10, 2009 5:15 AM in response to NSH

Thanks for the idea but it did not help -- I have tried to open with Word before. It simply says that the file is not a valid Word document.

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Answer 3

Yer_Man

Level 10

165,972 points

Feb 10, 2009 5:39 AM in response to NSH

Have these files been stored on a FAT formatted disk? Try use an app like Name Mangler to rename them to include the .doc suffix.

Regards

TD

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Answer 4

NSH Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 10, 2009 5:39 AM in response to NSH

One more thing. This is what I get sometimes when I try to open them:

Last login: Mon Feb 9 19:44:37 on ttys000
Macintosh-2:~ myusername$

"myusername" is actually my user name.

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Answer 5

Feb 10, 2009 5:57 AM in response to NSH

This may seem like a dumb suggestion but....have you tried simply adding .doc to the end of each file, by typing it yourself? This works sometimes.

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Answer 6

NSH Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 10, 2009 7:11 AM in response to Yer_Man

They were stored on my LaCie Disk, my hard drive, and my Idisk. Multple back-ups. All of the files have flipped to unix executable files.

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Answer 7

Yer_Man

Level 10

165,972 points

Feb 10, 2009 7:24 AM in response to NSH

As I say, and indeed Tom in London also says, have you tried re-attaching a .doc suffix?

Regards

TD

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Answer 8

NSH Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 10, 2009 8:35 AM in response to Tom in London

In my original posting I said that I usually add .doc extensions when this happens, and that ordinarily this solves the problem. So I have tried that, but it has not helped this time.

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Answer 9

Feb 10, 2009 8:36 AM in response to NSH

ok sorry . I didn't see that.

What happens if you open them in TextEdit?

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Answer 10

NSH Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 10, 2009 8:37 AM in response to Yer_Man

TD -- as you will see below, I have tried added the .doc extension. Does NameMangler do something besides re-attaching the extension?

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Answer 11

NSH Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 10, 2009 8:37 AM in response to Tom in London

Thanks for trying to help! Yes, I have tried opening them in TextEdit.

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Answer 12

Feb 10, 2009 8:42 AM in response to NSH

Well, I'm interested because something similar has been happening to me. I keep all my old emails archived as text files, some of them going back 10 years or more, and for some reason, some of them have converted themselves into Unix files that are only gobbledegook when I open them. This seems to be happening at random. I'm wondering if there is some sort of time limitation, after when like Cinderella at midnight, all of my files are suddenly going to turn into unreadable Unix pumpkins.....?

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Answer 13

NSH Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 10, 2009 9:27 AM in response to Tom in London

Yes, that's exactly what happens to me -- there is gobbledygook when I do open them -- most of them time odd symbols, paragraphs of them.

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Answer 14

Feb 10, 2009 10:07 AM in response to NSH

Try changing extension to .rtf.

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Answer 15

Király

Level 6

10,025 points

Feb 10, 2009 10:12 AM in response to NSH

It might be the case that the Word files have the executable bit set in the POSIX permissions.

Try this. Open a Terminal window, and type:

cd (hit spacebar, drag into the Terminal window the folder that contains the .doc files, press return)

chmod -x *.doc

That will remove the executable bit from all files in that folder with the .doc extension. See if that fixes it up.

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