Anyone else have trouble with RTF tables after a recent Microsoft Word update?

Eric Geddes

For the last several years, I've been maintaining a BI Publisher RTF template with multiple, carefully sized and placed tables—both nested and independent—without incident. But after the 2409 update to Microsoft Word, simply opening the template causes table widths and the columns they contain to change. I just confirmed the 2410 update that dropped this weekend does not fix it.

Output that used to look like this:

Now looks like this:

(Please note: the fonts are somewhat different and it's a different record… please ignore.)

Yes, the template actually changes when it is opened in Word—I even downloaded the template we're using in PROD that produced the upper image, but it looked like the template that produced the lower image. Happens with every RTF template I open and edit. I'm not the only one, either, as demonstrated in this post on Microsoft's techcommunity site:

Newest Office365 word update damages tables | Microsoft Community Hub

My current version: Microsoft® Word for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2410 Build 16.0.18129.20200) 32-bit

I tried different machines, different users, new installations, with and without the BI Publisher plugin… everything. Any ideas?

Thank you.

Mallikarjuna Kuppauru-Oracle

HI @Eric Geddes

Seems to be an issue with Microsoft Update.

Regards,

Arjun