Glitch with using Google Mail View – be warned!

Wow – managed to track down an elusive error!  Has anyone else come across this glitch? Guess they must have….

A colleague was transferring data from a large number of .doc forms completed in Microsoft Word into an Excel spreadsheet, and instead of downloading the .doc files, simply opened them in Google Mail’s View function.  However, the data ‘appeared’ different to what was shown when the files were downloaded and opened in Word – so, most of the figures incorporated into the spreadsheet were actually wrong.  Basically, Google View represented the figures  incorrectly.

The problem seems to have been because the forms on the original .doc documents had been completed using drop-down menus, and therefore that the View function did not pick these up correctly.  There was no way of knowing that the figures were wrong, unless the original files were actually opened and checked.  I wonder how many other people have therefore incorporated incorrect data into their work as a result of this glitch?

So, don’t rely on Google Mail’s View function if your document includes such things as drop-down menus!  Just wondering, is this actually a subtle way of Google trying to undermine Microsoft?