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Equations have become non-editable pictures in Microsoft Word
Reading time: 2minTechNote 103
Applicability
| The information on this page applies to: |
| MathType for Windows |
| MathType for Mac |
| All supported versions of Word for Windows and Mac |
Issue
After opening a previously saved Word file containing MathType 7 equations, you discover all or some of the MathType 7 objects have become non-editable "pictures." This is associated with the Auto-recovery function in Word. We know this is a Word bug because the issue is not limited to MathType 7 and happens with other "embedded objects", such as Excel charts. Further, there is usually no way to return the equations to an editable state.
Symptoms
- Attempting to edit an equation by double-clicking it will bring up the Picture Format tab instead of opening MathType 7
- Copying and pasting the equation into a MathType 7 window results in the error "The Clipboard contains no equation data".
- The 8 resizing handles around the equation have a different appearance:
|
Equation has become a picture, Windows. |
Equation has not become a picture, Windows. |
|
Equation has become a picture, Mac. |
Equation has not become a picture, Mac. |
Prevention
Microsoft recommends turning off Auto-recovery in Word. However, this is a prevention step and will not repair equations that have already become non-editable pictures. The steps to disable Auto-recovery are different for each version of Word, whether on the Macintosh or the Windows platforms. Look for the "Save" preferences for your version of Word and remove the checkmark from "Save Auto-recovery data every x minutes."
Solutions
In many cases, the equations will display and print correctly. If you don't need to edit the equations, it is possible to leave them as they are. If you only need to edit a small number of equations, it may be more expedient to delete those equations and recreate them in MathType 7
It's rare, but in some cases, it may be possible to recover the equations by running the Convert Equations command within Word:
- Open the document in Word and save it as an RTF (Rich Text Format) document.
- From the MathType 7 menu (or Tab), choose to Convert Equations.
- Choose the following settings in the Convert Equations dialog: under "Equation Types to Convert", select (at a minimum) ‘MathType 7 or Equation Editor Equations’ and "Microsoft Word EQ Fields". Set the Range to "Whole Document".
- Under "Convert equations to" select MathType 7 equations (OLE objects)".
- Click the "Convert" button to start the conversion process.
- A dialogue will appear when the conversion is complete, confirming the number of equations converted.
- Save the document from Word as either a .doc or .docx file. (As it pertains to this issue, .doc seems to be more stable than .docx.)
- Hopefully, the document and all equations might be editable now using any version of Word along with MathType 7 Note that sometimes this conversion method cannot recover all equations in a document. If this is the case, equations will have to be re-created, and MathType 7 cannot automatically recover them.
Providing feedback to Microsoft
This behavior is related to a known issue in Microsoft’s Word. While we don’t have direct control over how Microsoft prioritizes or resolves these issues, customer feedback plays an important role in bringing them to light.
If this issue impacts your workflow, we encourage you to share your feedback directly with Microsoft via their feedback portal, where users can report and vote on issues. Once the feedback gains enough visibility, their team reviews and responds to it. We’ll continue to monitor the situation and support you with any available workarounds in the meantime.
If you have any questions or have found alternative approaches that work well for you, feel free to share them with us. Your feedback helps us improve both our products and our documentation.