Symptoms

When using the Office Connector, importing Microsoft Word 2003 documents throw this error:

The selected file is not a valid binary Word 97-2003 document

Cause

There are two known causes:

1. Confluence is running on IBM J9
2. The document is created using OpenOffice Writer. Some features such as auto-numbering and table have been reportedly causing this problem.

Resolution

For a workaround, refer to CONF-17491 or CONF-17053. For Microsoft Word 2007 documents, refer to Error Appears when Attempting to Import, Display Or Edit Microsoft Office 2007 Documents.