That dreaded "Red X" in Microsoft Word

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That dreaded "Red X" in Microsoft Word

I've used Snow Leopard for a few weeks without much problem. I installed Office 2008 this weekend, and it's working pretty well. But, today, all of the sudden, images I had previously inserted in documents are all showing up as red x's. All today I've been working on these same docs, seeing these same images fine, opening, closing, saving, these same docs etc. I restarted my Mac because a DVD wasn't registering (it registers now), but now these Word docs are haywire. Any suggestions?
Thanks.

MacBook Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Sep 21, 2009 6:15 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 21, 2009 6:51 PM in response to msilva

I'm not too sure about this; it sounds like the image links are broken. Just a suggestion: try repairing disk permissions. That's what helped me with a similar problem, it may or may not work.

Message was edited by: AlexJames88

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Answer 2

msilva Author

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Sep 23, 2009 7:34 AM in response to AlexJames88

Thanks for the suggestion, but repairing permissions didn't solve it. A lot of my teacher colleagues are having the same problem, too, as it turns out.

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Answer 3

Sep 23, 2009 2:52 PM in response to msilva

Are these files from Microsoft Office (PC version), or do you have any more information about them?

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Answer 4

Codeus

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Oct 13, 2009 3:26 AM in response to msilva

Its extremely annoying and I dont have a solution, but as a work around, I have found that OpenOffice.org (available free) will open the files fine (complete with images).

You can then save them back out as new word.doc files and they're fixed.

HTH.

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Answer 5

Oct 13, 2009 8:30 AM in response to Codeus

Hi Codeus;

Wouldn't a simpler solution be drop M$ Word and use only OpenOffice?

Allan

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Answer 6

Codeus

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13 points

Oct 14, 2009 8:07 AM in response to Allan Eckert

Personally I don't think the decision to swap from MS to OOo is a simple one, there are significant differences and I guess it depends on what the OP's requirements are.

Any how, I wasn't debating the pros and cons of MS Office vs OOo, just suggesting how to recover the missing images.

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Answer 7

teech79

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Oct 15, 2009 5:10 PM in response to Codeus

I am having the same issue. I am on a MBP--10.5.8 using MS Word 08. The docs were created in MS Word 08 but on an older MBP (not an Intel). They were created on Leopard on the older machine.

Please help--I have documents that I've created to help my staff and honestly the thought of having to redo them just makes me sick.

Thanks so much for any help!
Ginger

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Answer 8

Codeus

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13 points

Oct 16, 2009 12:57 AM in response to teech79

teech79 wrote:
I am having the same issue

Did you try using OpenOffice to recover them as I suggested above?

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Answer 9

teech79

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20 points

Oct 16, 2009 4:50 AM in response to Codeus

No, I haven't I just found this posting last night. I'll see if I can catch my tech. I can't download anything because this is a work computer. I didn't know if someone had figured out something else.

Thanks,
Ginger

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