Knowledge Base

WD97: Error Using Documents.Open to Open Non-Word File

Article ID: 157616

Article Last Modified on 1/19/2007

Microsoft Word 97 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q157616

SYMPTOMS

When you run the following statement,

Documents.Open FileName:= "test", Format:= wdOpenFormatRTF

to open the file "test.rtf", the following error message may appear:

Run-time error '5174': This file could not be found.

Or, if the file "test.doc" exists in the same folder as "test.rtf":

Run-time error '5121': Word cannot open this document.

CAUSE

If a file extension is not specified when using the FileName argument, Word tries to open the file assuming a .doc extension, not by what is specified in the Format argument. The Format argument does not specify the file extension or type of file to open; instead, it specifies the file converter to use to open the file. In this example:

"Format:= wdOpenFormatRTF"

opens the file using the Rich Text Format (RTF) converter.

WORKAROUND

Specify the file name and extension when using the statement:

Documents.Open FileName:= "test.rtf", Format:= wdOpenFormatRTF

MORE INFORMATION

The same problem arises when using:

Application.Options.DefaultOpenFormat = wdOpenFormatRTF
Documents.Open FileName:= "test"

STATUS

This behavior is by design of Microsoft Word and Visual Basic for Applications.

Additional query words: macro debug method vba vbe visual basic word97

Keywords: KB157616