Cannot get Office Word Macro to work on Confluence page - error rendering - unrecognized date string
Asked by Julie S:

I am using the Office Word Macro on a confluence page but my document is not appearing. I am getting the error message: "Error rendering macro 'viewdoc': Unrecognized date string, please use mm/dd/yyyy"  

I am not entering a date string of any kind so I can't figure out this error message. BTW, this macro worked with the previous iteration of this word document. But I edited it to add some requirements text and now the macro no longer works. Thanks for your help!


Answers:
author: Tristan Austin
body: While the issue described above is related to the Word Macro, I was getting the exact same error message with the Excel Macro after making some minor updates to the excel file and uploading a new version of it directly to the attachments page.

In case someone else ran into this issue like I did (7 years later), I noticed that after the name in the File Name field on the "Edit 'Office Excel' Macro" dialog it said "(Not Found)" at the end.

I deleted the excel macro from the page without removing or changing the attached file, added the macro again, selected the same excel file that used to work, filled out the required fields and could see that it was rendering correctly in the preview and then in the page after I saved it.

comments: author: Kirk Gould
body: See suggested answer below.


author: Kirk Gould
body: **Solution:**

We were having a similar issue and it did not matter what we named our file or whether we used PowerPoint or PDF to attach and add a macro for. We discovered the answer in the config for the Macro where it asks for the "Page Name" for the macro in Edit mode. When we blanked out the Page Name entry in the macro configuration, everything worked (because it defaults to the page you are editing.) When we looked closer at the Page Name it was entitled (6/3/20 - 6/4/20) so the macro was looking at the page name and feeling it was improperly named.

**So the moral to the story is** :   
"Either name pages the way Confluence wants them or don't list the Page Name in the Macro for Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or PDF."


author: Ryan Goodwin
body: Hi Julie,

You might want to create a support ticket so we can help dig into this problem a bit more. If you wish visit <https://support.atlassian.com> and create a support request.

For quick troubleshooting here, have you tried with another document of the same type? If you copy/paste the data in the doc to a new doc and save it, will that work on the page? Next, if you save the document in another format (.docx/.doc) does that work? What version of office are you using?

comments: author: Julie S
body: Yes, I have tried with another document of the type .docx. I also saved my Word document as a .doc file and got the same error. The ONLY way I got it to go away is by reverting to an old version of the page. The document was still the updated document even with the old page and displayed properly - no rendering error. So it is not the document, it is the page. The page is very basic - a panel with some text then an attached Word document then the embedded Word macro. I have no idea what caused the error. But I started having it on other pages now. I am afraid to update my Word documents since it doesn't show up until I update the Word document. The page remains the same - at least visually - but there must be something hidden on the page that goes away when I revert to an older version. Does this help you to diagnose it? Could you at least look in the code and see in what circumstance this error is generated? In other words, what "date string" it is referring to? Thanks for your help.


author: Julie S
body: I do believe a Support Ticket has been opened for this issue: [CSP-11305](https://support.atlassian.com/browse/CSP-113054 "https://support.atlassian.com/browse/CSP-113054")