You receive the "A table in this document has become corrupted" error message when you try to edit complex tables in Word 2002

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This article was previously published under Q328232

SYMPTOMS

When you try to edit a complex table in Microsoft Word 2002, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

The document may start to flicker, and may appear to be repaginating.
You may receive the following error message:
A table in this document has become corrupted. To recover the contents of the table: select the table and choose Convert Table to Text from the Table menu.

Note This symptoms only occurs if the complex table in the document was created in an earlier version of Word.

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This problem is corrected in Office XP Service Pack 3. To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Office XP. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

307841 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307841/ ) OFFXP: How to Obtain the Latest Office XP Service Pack

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Hotfix Information

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem.

If the hotfix is available for download, there is a "Hotfix download available" section at the top of this Knowledge Base article. If this section does not appear, submit a request to Microsoft Customer Service and Support to obtain the hotfix.

Note If additional issues occur or if any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for this specific hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Service and Support telephone numbers or to create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support (http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support)

Note The "Hotfix download available" form displays the languages for which the hotfix is available. If you do not see your language, it is because a hotfix is not available for that language.
The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

   Date         Time      Version  Size       File name
   --------------------------------------------------------
   17-Nov-2002 19:50:10 5,554,288 Winword.msp (Optimized)
   17-Nov-2002 18:37:12 6,619,260 Winwordff.msp (Full-file/administrative)

After the hotfix is installed, the following files will have the listed attributes or later:

   Date         Time      Version  Size        File name
   -------------------------------------------------------
   15-Nov-2002 01:14  10.0.4712.0  10,598,984  Winword.exe

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Office XP Service Pack 3.

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