"This is not a valid File name"

Anonymous
2011-11-24T15:33:48+00:00

Word won't let me save. Every time I try and save my document it tells me "This is not a valid file name" and then asks me to check the path to make sure it was typed correctly or to select a file from the list of files and folders. I thought I had done that correctly, why won't it let me save? I just want to save my article and essay. How can I fix this problem and continue with my work?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2012-06-28T21:02:00+00:00

OK people, I worked out the issue on my Mac which led to this error, it may help you all out. The Macintosh HD name was by mistake appended with a "disallowed" character which in my case was "/". As soon I removed the character, Word worked as normal. So check your root hd name.

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Anonymous
2011-11-26T07:41:52+00:00

Hello, Athlea.

I used to have naming problems with older Word versions, which did not admit a slew of characters, neither in the file name nor in the containing folder, or the folder containing that one, an so on, up the chain and all the way to the disk name (a.k.a. file path). One poster here had a disk named something like "Mac/John" and could not save anywhere from Word, so make sure there's no slash in the disk name.

The latest incarnation of Word is 14.1.3 (see About Word). In my experience, the problem of "invalid characters" now only appears in file names that contain forward slashes. Here, Word 2011 flags no errors otherwise, not even if the folder name contains a slash. Thus, only two characters are prohibited: the colon in files or folders (Finder's imposition) and the slash in Word file names.

To play it safe for now, open TextEdit (it's in your Dock, but you'll also find it in your Applications folder), paste the text in a blank document and Save it from within TextEdit.

  • Can you save any document at all from within Word? New documents, changes to old documents?

It may be a temporary glitch that you can cure by restarting Word or rebooting the Mac, but first paste the text somewhere else, as indicated.

If restarting/rebooting fails to fix it:

  • Quit Word and launch it while you keep the Shift key pressed. Then test and post back.

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Anonymous
2011-11-26T05:42:39+00:00

Does any folder in the file path have a symbol or other non-alphanumeric character (including accented characters)? If so, try renaming it.

Here's a KB article that describes the problem: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2462364

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John Korchok 236.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2017-11-30T22:26:08+00:00

Here's is Microsoft's article on the issue: Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces

The illegal characters in a file name include <>:"/|?*

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-01-02T17:02:23+00:00

    I am having the same issue...can you please tell me how did you remove the character

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