Word 2013 - Corrupt FGR

[Denise Sproed 0]

I had a notebook failure so I have a new notebook with Word 2013. I installed TMG 8 from the web and added the serial number and then restored a back up. I'm trying to get things set right (like Exhibit pathways) but the most concerning issue is that every time I run a Family Group Record and save it as a WORD file it says it is corrupt. I switched to RTF and it works. I also had trouble saving a Pedigree to PDF format this morning. Can this be remedied? My old notebook had WORD 2010 and never a problem with TMG 8.

 

Appreciate guidance.

Denise Sproed in Oregon

[Virginia Blakelock 0]

Denise -

 

What is the operating system on your new notebook?

 

For the report problems, try resetting the report definition for those reports using the Reset Defaults button under the configuration name.

 

Check that you have installed the PDF printer in v8 (File / Printer setup / Install PDF printer).

 

Virginia

[Denise Sproed 0]

Virginia,

I have Windows 7 Professional. I believe I saw the PDF printer in the list. I will go reset the defaults if I can locate the place you speak of.

Denise

[Denise Sproed 0]

Resetting the defaults did not work. When I tried to install the PDF printer, it indeed confirmed that it is already set up.

 

Oddly when I tried to print a pedigree to PDF it locked up the program. I closed and restarted TMG and then it said the file was being used. When I tried to delete it from the Report Output file (it has 0 kb of data) it says 'The action can't be completed because the file is open in Print driver host for 32bit applications. Close the file and try again.

 

I also can't get the Exhibit pathway reset. Under Preferences I set it to D:ExhibitsBD Family Exhibits but when I look at a census note it is still looking where my old computer had the exhibit folder on F drive (I have no F drive now). I did press APPLY and then OK.

 

When I go to add an exhibit it goes to the D drive but it has frowny faces for my thousands of existing exhbitis. I must be forgetting something as it seemed much easier the last time I had to move all the files to a new computer.

 

Denise

[Michael Hannah 0]

Denise,

 

Did you actually move all your exhibit files to the D drive folder you mentioned? You will need to do that yourself, especially if you have them in multiple folders within the main folder.

 

Resetting Preferences only sets things for NEW exhibits. Existing exhibits also need their pointers reset. You do that by running Validate File Integrity and telling it what folders to look in for your exhibits, and it will reset their pointers.

[Virginia Blakelock 0]

Denise -

 

Have you used your notebook with a printer and do you have a printer driver installed on it? TMG needs a printer driver to format and display reports. You don't need a physical printer attached but a default printer of some sort selected in Devices and Printers. The Microsoft XPS Document Writer should work as a default if you have nothing else.

 

Have you tried the rightclick Troubleshoot option for the Wholly Genes PDF printer in Devices and Printers?

 

Virginia

[Denise Sproed 0]

Hi Virginia,

Yes, I had a default printer. I added another printer and that did not fix it's glitch. However, running VFI DID find the 5545 exhibits so I am only missing 9 now. Much more reasonable number to find due to the transition. I tried the troubleshoot right click on the printer in Devices. The problem continues. I'm suspicious that it is related to the message that it is a 32 bit printer when this is a 64 bit system? But I do not know how to fix that, if it is indeed the problem.

Must get ready for a family reunion this morning so I will hope the other reports will print correctly.

Denise

[Virginia Blakelock 0]

Denise -

 

I also have a 64-bit machine. Try setting the port for the PDF printer to Nul. That setting is in Windows Printers and Devices / Wholly Genes PDF Writer v4 / Printer Properties / Ports.

 

Virginia

[Virginia Blakelock 0]

Denise -

 

I checked the FGS in Word 2013 and see the problems you do. Apparently Microsoft has made changes in the way tables are coded in 2013 and TMG tabular reports to Word 2013 are being garbled. As you found, RTF appears to work fine. I had no problems with PDF.

 

Let us know if you see other discrepancies in output to Word 2013.

 

Thanks -

 

Virginia

[Virginia Blakelock 0]

Denise -

 

If you need a PDF Pedigree report and can't get the WG PDF printer to work for you, as a workaround you can send the report to Word 2013 as RTF and then use Convert to convert it to PDF.

 

Virginia

[JimG 0]

Denise,

 

This problem of "corrupt reports" persists with Word 2016. Working with a Microsoft Office forum to troubleshoot the problem, we found that Word 2013 and Word 2016 are not as robust as Word 2010 in opening doc-files generated by TMG v.905 without error. The workaround is to open the doc-file in Word 2010 and then save the file as a docx-file. Both Word 2013 and 2016 will then open the converted docx-files without error. I found there are also issues opening RTF files from TMG v.9.05 in Word 2016.

 

I still have a copy of TMG v6.12 running on my old Windows XP SP3 pc. It generates report files that can be opened by Word 2016 without error.

 

I checked the doc-file format being generated by TMG9 for Family Group Sheets and found that the doc-file did not comply with Microsoft open doc-file standards. I used the Microsoft Binary File Format Validator to check an example doc-file. Although this tool has been available for software companies to use for some time, Microsoft did not change Word relative to Word 2010 until Word 2013 was released. Of course you were one of the first people to encounter this problem.

 

It looks like we are stuck with the workaround as I doubt Microsoft will ever make Word 2016 more like Word 2010 in handling doc-files.

 

Jim

Edited December 28, 2015 by JimG

[Jim Byram 0]

If I had changed to Word 2016, Word 2010 would no longer be installed on my system and I suspect that's true for most users.

 

As you're probably aware, TMG 5/6/7 and TMG 8/9 have different report managers and word processing modules. I have no idea if the developer of the word processing modules used a validation tool. You'd think that he didn't considering the issues that came up with both versions over time.

 

Does Word 2016 offer some benefit over Word 2010 for book production?