Word won't open older files under Catalina

Robin Reed1 wrote:

I have Word for Mac 16.16.16. It opened Word files that date back to the 90's (A while ago I updated a bunch of them to be sure) but after Catalina it won't open many older ones. Not just .doc files either, some .docx too.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250881150?answerId=251673026022#251673026022

Sometimes a major system upgrade messes with file permissions in the Home folder. Check the permissions on those files that won't open to make sure that's not what happened.

Also boot into Safe Mode (Use Safe Mode to isolate issues with your Mac) and try opening Word and then the files from there. Reboot normally and try again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing some system cache cleaning, volume verifying and directory repairing. 

Did the AutoUpdate Dashboard indicate what was new in the 16.16.16 November update? Like Catalina compatibility remarks? Microsoft continues to struggle with the compatibility of Office 365 v16.30 on Catalina, so curious what energy they are putting into your copy of Word.

One trick that you can try is to install the free LibreOffice v6.3.3.2 (current of this post), and open and save your older documents with it that Word 16.16.16 will not open. Then afterward, try opening them again in Word. There have been several occasions throughout the years where this technique worked.

If you can't get Word to open it try Pages and LibreOffice. Both can open and resave as it's own format or in Word format. If you can resave in Word format under a different file name see if Word can then open it.

Have you tried to open the files from within Word? By dropping the document on the Word icon?

Are you sure you have the latest update for Word 16.

Using Microsoft's terminology. Probably when you run AutoUpdate to update Word.