What to do when Word constantly crashes?

[Bill Heidbreder, Apt. 5C]

I have owned two PCs and a Macintosh and on every computer and with
both operating systems and with every version of Word I use, it
frequently crashes. On the Macintosh, I get a message that Word
encountered an unexpected problem and had to close. I lose my work
since the last save, because the file recovery file is always fifteen
minutes out of date. I save frequently, but even if I didn't lose
five minutes worth of work each time I would still lose a lot of time
because I am constantly having to reopen Word. It may crash 20 times
in a day. Just now I was working on a page and it crashed five
sucessive times while I was working on the same paragraph. Does
anyone know anything that can be done about this? I have to use
Microsoft Word because I am a professional editor and Apple's Pages
program is inadequate for the work I do.

 

[CyberTaz]

I can't speak for Win Word but crashes while in use on the Mac usually have
specific causes. Have a look at the topic "Unexpected quit while in use" on
this page:

http://word.mvps.org/mac/Diagnose.html

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Bill:

Many people around the Internet will waste a lot of your time "suggesting"
this and that wild goose for you to chase.

I will give it to you straight: "There are some things you are doing in
those documents that cause Word to crash!"

Sorry about that, but unless you allow us to help you change your work
practices, Word will never be stable for you, and neither will any other
complex word-processor.

Word 2003 and Word 2007 are rock-solid on the PC. I won't say they "never
crash", but I use them all day every day (I am a professional Technical
Writer) and I do not remember a crash from either in the past two years.

Word 2008 on the Mac is bug-city. It is fearfully unstable, and we're all
waiting for the next version and hoping that that will be a lot more
reliable.

Sorry: There was a lot of things the Macintosh Business Unit had to learn
about creating "Mission-critical stability" in the software it makes. Let's
face it, this has been a painful journey for all large software developers:
Microsoft was one of the first to realise that being "The first to be wrong"
may mean you get to market faster than the other guy and maximise your
sales, but it keeps your products out of the "Mission-Critical" part of a
large company forever Mac BU has learned these things now, and we're
waiting for the next version, which we hope will contain the result of these
learnings

However, there are things you can do on the Mac so Word 2008 will get you
through the day without a crash. Let me list some of them:

1) Keep the updates up to date.

That's the big one. All these "Security Updates" they put out contain one
small "security" fix, and several unmentioned "bug fixes".

You haven't mentioned the Version or update level of the copy of Word you
are using, which makes it impossible to give you specific answers. But I am
guessing from your crash history it's Word 2008, in which case Word>About
Word should tell you the "Last installed update" was 12.2.1", and if it
doesn't, nothing can help you until it does.

Your operating system is updating frequently. And if you are using OS 10.5,
Word 2008 was not designed for it in the first place. If you do not put in
the Microsoft updates to keep up with OS X, you end up with Office not
matching the system it is installed on, and it will crash, and that's the
reason.

2) Stay away from the eye-candy shovelled into Word to divert the
easily-impressed. These "features" are not built with the level of
stability and robustness of the "working" features designed for the
professionals. Notebook Layout View, Publishing Layout View, Document
Elements, Quick Tables, and SmartArt are all like the neon signs outside a
bordello that promises you instant satisfaction. They'll raise your
blood-pressure, certainly, but not from carnal desire

If you use them, you get broken documents that crash a lot.

3) The AutoRecovery mechanism is a piece of nonsense that provides almost
no protection: it's worse than useless, and best turned off.

AutoRecovery works by saving a list of changes to the main file. If the
main file is unreadable, AutoRecovery can't work. And that's usually the
problem.

Instead, turn on "Always make backup". That saves a complete document, not
a list of changes. Every time you save, Always Make Backup saves the
previous version in the same folder, as a file named "Backup of...". If
your document goes bang, close it, open the backup in Word, and save it over
the top of the original, and carry on.

4) Don't use Tracked Changes.

Tracked changes creates an internal code structure that becomes
indescribably complex and highly dynamic. It's a bad idea on the PC, on the
Mac, it's the kiss of death: Mac Word simply doesn't have the grunt to
handle a large file full of overlapping tracked changes.

Instead, resolve all the changes in the file and make a copy before you
begin editing. When you're done editing, insert all of the changes in a
single operation using "Compare Documents". Your crashes should stop!

5) Avoid floating objects. Floating pictures and floating tables are a
maintenance nightmare in any case; professionals avoid them. But in Mac
Word, they're a constant source of trouble, again, because of bugs the
software is too fragile to cope with the sudden large changes in pagination
these objects can cause.

6) Always be deeply suspicious of Footnotes. Footnotes are a "complex
structure". If the Author inserted them, and they're not a documentation
professional, expect trouble, you're going to get it

7) Keep it SIMPLE! Gain an impression of how complex the code is in the
file you are working on. Work in such a manner that you create simple
(non-complex) document code, and your files will survive a lot longer.

One of the more important suggestions is "Use Styles for ALL formatting."
That's very important in stopping this misery

In your current case, you have a "Corrupt paragraph" in that document.
Replace it entirely: Cut the paragraph to the clipboard, save and close the
document, re-open the document, and Paste>Special as "Unformatted Text" to
replace the paragraph.

Study Clive's book "Bend Word to your Will"
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html

The more of what he recommends that you do, the more reliable your Word work
will become.

PLEASE hang around in here and ask lots of questions. I can't brain-dump
the entire proceeds of 40 years' of professional documentation work into you
in a single post. But many of the people visiting here regularly have my
level of expertise and more! And we really want you to have the benefit of
it: if you want it.

Hope this helps

I have owned two PCs and a Macintosh and on every computer and with
both operating systems and with every version of Word I use, it
frequently crashes. On the Macintosh, I get a message that Word
encountered an unexpected problem and had to close. I lose my work
since the last save, because the file recovery file is always fifteen
minutes out of date. I save frequently, but even if I didn't lose
five minutes worth of work each time I would still lose a lot of time
because I am constantly having to reopen Word. It may crash 20 times
in a day. Just now I was working on a page and it crashed five
sucessive times while I was working on the same paragraph. Does
anyone know anything that can be done about this? I have to use
Microsoft Word because I am a professional editor and Apple's Pages
program is inadequate for the work I do.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Bill Heidbreder, Apt. 5C]

Hi Bill:

Many people around the Internet will waste a lot of your time "suggesting"
this and that wild goose for you to chase.

I will give it to you straight:  "There are some things you are doing in
those documents that cause Word to crash!"

Sorry about that, but unless you allow us to help you change your work
practices, Word will never be stable for you, and neither will any other
complex word-processor.

Word 2003 and Word 2007 are rock-solid on the PC.  I won't say they "never
crash", but I use them all day every day (I am a professional Technical
Writer) and I do not remember a crash from either in the past two years.

Word 2008 on the Mac is bug-city.  It is fearfully unstable, and we're all
waiting for the next version and hoping that that will be a lot more
reliable.

Sorry:  There was a lot of things the Macintosh Business Unit had to learn
about creating "Mission-critical stability" in the software it makes.  Let's
face it, this has been a painful journey for all large software developers:
Microsoft was one of the first to realise that being "The first to be wrong"
may mean you get to market faster than the other guy and maximise your
sales, but it keeps your products out of the "Mission-Critical" part of a
large company forever  Mac BU has learned these things now, and we're
waiting for the next version, which we hope will contain the result of these
learnings

However, there are things you can do on the Mac so Word 2008 will get you
through the day without a crash.  Let me list some of them:

1)  Keep the updates up to date.

That's the big one.  All these "Security Updates" they put out contain one
small "security" fix, and several unmentioned "bug fixes".

You haven't mentioned the Version or update level of the copy of Word you
are using, which makes it impossible to give you specific answers.  ButI am
guessing from your crash history it's Word 2008, in which case Word>About
Word should tell you the "Last installed update" was 12.2.1", and if it
doesn't, nothing can help you until it does.

Your operating system is updating frequently.  And if you are using OS 10.5,
Word 2008 was not designed for it in the first place.  If you do not put in
the Microsoft updates to keep up with OS X, you end up with Office not
matching the system it is installed on, and it will crash, and that's the
reason.

2)  Stay away from the eye-candy shovelled into Word to divert the
easily-impressed.  These "features" are not built with the level of
stability and robustness of the "working" features designed for the
professionals.  Notebook Layout View, Publishing Layout View, Document
Elements, Quick Tables, and SmartArt are all like the neon signs outside a
bordello that promises you instant satisfaction.  They'll raise your
blood-pressure, certainly, but not from carnal desire

If you use them, you get broken documents that crash a lot.

3)  The AutoRecovery mechanism is a piece of nonsense that provides almost
no protection: it's worse than useless, and best turned off.

AutoRecovery works by saving a list of changes to the main file.  If the
main file is unreadable, AutoRecovery can't work. And that's usually the
problem.

Instead, turn on "Always make backup".  That saves a complete document,not
a list of changes.  Every time you save, Always Make Backup saves the
previous version in the same folder, as a file named "Backup of...".  If
your document goes bang, close it, open the backup in Word, and save it over
the top of the original, and carry on.

4)  Don't use Tracked Changes.

Tracked changes creates an internal code structure that becomes
indescribably complex and highly dynamic.  It's a bad idea on the PC, on the
Mac, it's the kiss of death: Mac Word simply doesn't have the grunt to
handle a large file full of overlapping tracked changes.

Instead, resolve all the changes in the file and make a copy before you
begin editing.  When you're done editing, insert all of the changes in a
single operation using "Compare Documents".  Your crashes should stop!

5)  Avoid floating objects.  Floating pictures and floating tables are a
maintenance nightmare in any case; professionals avoid them.  But in Mac
Word, they're a constant source of trouble, again, because of bugs the
software is too fragile to cope with the sudden large changes in pagination
these objects can cause.

6)  Always be deeply suspicious of Footnotes.  Footnotes are a "complex
structure".  If the Author inserted them, and they're not a documentation
professional, expect trouble, you're going to get it

7)  Keep it SIMPLE!  Gain an impression of how complex the code is inthe
file you are working on.  Work in such a manner that you create simple
(non-complex) document code, and your files will survive a lot longer.

One of the more important suggestions is "Use Styles for ALL formatting."
That's very important in stopping this misery

In your current case, you have a "Corrupt paragraph" in that document.
Replace it entirely:  Cut the paragraph to the clipboard, save and close the
document, re-open the document, and Paste>Special as "Unformatted Text" to
replace the paragraph.

Study Clive's book "Bend Word to your Will"http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html

The more of what he recommends that you do, the more reliable your Word work
will become.

PLEASE hang around in here and ask lots of questions.  I can't brain-dump
the entire proceeds of 40 years' of professional documentation work into you
in a single post.  But many of the people visiting here regularly have my
level of expertise and more!  And we really want you to have the benefit of
it: if you want it.

Hope this helps



This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

 --

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

I'm sorry that you say don't use Track Changes. I am a professional
editor and I have to use Track Changes because my clients need to be
able to accept or reject my edits. That's why I can't use Pages -
Apple's program has inferior Track Changes capabilities, and
specifically you cannot view the document with the deletions showing
only in the margins, which means that with Track Changes on the
document is unreadable and impossible to work with.

As for Word being stable on the PC, I wish it was stable on mine. I
have had two PCs, a desktop and a laptop, and Word frequently crashes
on my desktop and frequently crashed on my PC laptop before it died
and I replaced it with a Macintosh, hoping that Macintosh's greater
reliability would help me. Now, of course, I could partition my hard
drive and put Windows on one of the partitions and get Word for
Windows for my Macintosh and run it that way. But given my experience
with PC's and the fact that Word has always crashed very frequently
(right now as much as 30 or more times a day, sometimes every two
minutes), I don't have much confidence in the utility of doing that.
Plus Apple's other programs, except iWork, are generally superior to
Windows programs.

I tried reinstalling Office because the first time I forgot to remove
the old version. So I moved all the Office applications to the trash
can and reinstalled Office from the disk. Didn't make any difference;
still crashes. I tried installing updates, but I can't install
updates to Office because I get an error message that says that the
files needed to install Office updates are not on my hard drive. They
can't be on my backup hard drive, because it wasn't connected when I
installed Office the second time. As for changing the spotlight
preferences, I don't know how to do that. Maybe I'll call Apple and
ask them. If I can narrow this down to problems that are specific to
the machine or the operating system and not to MS Office, then Apple
will at least attempt to help me since I have Apple Care. Microsoft
will charge me $50 per phone call and won't necessarily help me, so I
would just be wasting my money.

I suspect there is no acceptable alternative to using Microsoft Word
for my purposes. I exchange files with my clients, returning the
files to them after I am finished editing them, and all of my clients
use Microsoft Word, so I have to either use Word or a program that
will save files in Word format. Pages will do that, but it's inferior
Track Changes feature renders it useless for my purposes, as
mentioned. So I am stuck wasting as much as an hour a day closing and
reopening Microsoft Word and redoing the previous five minutes worth
of work every time it crashes, 20, 30, 50 times a day. I suppose if
Microsoft could help me it would be worth paying them $50 since I lose
that much money every day in wasted time because of this problem, but
people tell me they are usually not very helpful, and they take your
money without even guaranteeing that they will solve your problem.
They told me they would probably just tell me to reinstall Office, and
I've done that. I thought buying a Macintosh would help me, but it
now seems to have made it worse, though I see no reason to believe
that switching back to Windows would be much of a solution. I am
curious why you say Office is stable on Windows/PC platforms when it
was never stable on either of mine. If someone were to convince me
that the solution was to run Office on my Mac under Windows, well then
of course I would do that, but then I would have to know why Word also
crashed on my PCs and what reason I have for believing it won't crash
under Windows again if I do that.

If this problem persists I suppose I could try to see if I could get
used to using Pages but it is awfully hard to edit a document when you
can't read it. For instance, I edit using Track Changes and then
review the text I've edited to make sure I didn't make any mistakes.
But with the way Track Changes displays in Pages I would have a devil
of a time trying to review an edited text, although I suppose I could
edit it in Pages and then convert it to Word for the review. But even
then it is hard to work with a text when you can't easily see what you
are doing. (You wind up with sentences that have both the deleted and
substituted words displaying, the deleted ones crossed out, and that
makes it very hard to read - you can imagine).

 

[Bill Heidbreder, Apt. 5C]

Hi Bill:

Many people around the Internet will waste a lot of your time "suggesting"
this and that wild goose for you to chase.

I will give it to you straight:  "There are some things you are doing in
those documents that cause Word to crash!"

Sorry about that, but unless you allow us to help you change your work
practices, Word will never be stable for you, and neither will any other
complex word-processor.

Word 2003 and Word 2007 are rock-solid on the PC.  I won't say they "never
crash", but I use them all day every day (I am a professional Technical
Writer) and I do not remember a crash from either in the past two years.

Word 2008 on the Mac is bug-city.  It is fearfully unstable, and we're all
waiting for the next version and hoping that that will be a lot more
reliable.

Sorry:  There was a lot of things the Macintosh Business Unit had to learn
about creating "Mission-critical stability" in the software it makes.  Let's
face it, this has been a painful journey for all large software developers:
Microsoft was one of the first to realise that being "The first to be wrong"
may mean you get to market faster than the other guy and maximise your
sales, but it keeps your products out of the "Mission-Critical" part of a
large company forever  Mac BU has learned these things now, and we're
waiting for the next version, which we hope will contain the result of these
learnings

However, there are things you can do on the Mac so Word 2008 will get you
through the day without a crash.  Let me list some of them:

1)  Keep the updates up to date.

That's the big one.  All these "Security Updates" they put out contain one
small "security" fix, and several unmentioned "bug fixes".

You haven't mentioned the Version or update level of the copy of Word you
are using, which makes it impossible to give you specific answers.  ButI am
guessing from your crash history it's Word 2008, in which case Word>About
Word should tell you the "Last installed update" was 12.2.1", and if it
doesn't, nothing can help you until it does.

Your operating system is updating frequently.  And if you are using OS 10.5,
Word 2008 was not designed for it in the first place.  If you do not put in
the Microsoft updates to keep up with OS X, you end up with Office not
matching the system it is installed on, and it will crash, and that's the
reason.

2)  Stay away from the eye-candy shovelled into Word to divert the
easily-impressed.  These "features" are not built with the level of
stability and robustness of the "working" features designed for the
professionals.  Notebook Layout View, Publishing Layout View, Document
Elements, Quick Tables, and SmartArt are all like the neon signs outside a
bordello that promises you instant satisfaction.  They'll raise your
blood-pressure, certainly, but not from carnal desire

If you use them, you get broken documents that crash a lot.

3)  The AutoRecovery mechanism is a piece of nonsense that provides almost
no protection: it's worse than useless, and best turned off.

AutoRecovery works by saving a list of changes to the main file.  If the
main file is unreadable, AutoRecovery can't work. And that's usually the
problem.

Instead, turn on "Always make backup".  That saves a complete document,not
a list of changes.  Every time you save, Always Make Backup saves the
previous version in the same folder, as a file named "Backup of...".  If
your document goes bang, close it, open the backup in Word, and save it over
the top of the original, and carry on.

4)  Don't use Tracked Changes.

Tracked changes creates an internal code structure that becomes
indescribably complex and highly dynamic.  It's a bad idea on the PC, on the
Mac, it's the kiss of death: Mac Word simply doesn't have the grunt to
handle a large file full of overlapping tracked changes.

Instead, resolve all the changes in the file and make a copy before you
begin editing.  When you're done editing, insert all of the changes in a
single operation using "Compare Documents".  Your crashes should stop!

5)  Avoid floating objects.  Floating pictures and floating tables are a
maintenance nightmare in any case; professionals avoid them.  But in Mac
Word, they're a constant source of trouble, again, because of bugs the
software is too fragile to cope with the sudden large changes in pagination
these objects can cause.

6)  Always be deeply suspicious of Footnotes.  Footnotes are a "complex
structure".  If the Author inserted them, and they're not a documentation
professional, expect trouble, you're going to get it

7)  Keep it SIMPLE!  Gain an impression of how complex the code is inthe
file you are working on.  Work in such a manner that you create simple
(non-complex) document code, and your files will survive a lot longer.

One of the more important suggestions is "Use Styles for ALL formatting."
That's very important in stopping this misery

In your current case, you have a "Corrupt paragraph" in that document.
Replace it entirely:  Cut the paragraph to the clipboard, save and close the
document, re-open the document, and Paste>Special as "Unformatted Text" to
replace the paragraph.

Study Clive's book "Bend Word to your Will"http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html

The more of what he recommends that you do, the more reliable your Word work
will become.

PLEASE hang around in here and ask lots of questions.  I can't brain-dump
the entire proceeds of 40 years' of professional documentation work into you
in a single post.  But many of the people visiting here regularly have my
level of expertise and more!  And we really want you to have the benefit of
it: if you want it.

Hope this helps



This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

 --

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 T1410, mailto:[email protected]

You also suggested that it may be file corruption. I wonder if I have
a corrupt file. Of course, if that is the problem, then every
document I have ever worked on on this computer is corrupt. But maybe
some more than others. Now I have spent two hours trying to work on
one page. Every time I do anything Word crashes, so I cannot get any
work done. I tried sending the file to my PC and opening it up in
Windows, but on the PC I can open the file but I cannot place the
cursor in it so I cannot make any changes to the document. Supposing
the file is corrupt. Is there anything I can do to fix it? This is a
300 page document on which I have already spent ten hours working. It
is a somewhat unappealling prospect to have to start over, and anyway,
I don't know if the file corruption, if that is what it is, was
introduced by me or by the author before sending it to me. I would
like to know: Is there a way of finding out if the file is corrupt or
not? If it is corrupt, is there a way of fixing it? And if it is
corrupt, is it possible that certain parts of it are what is corrupted
or are more corrupted than others? For example, if p. 89 is simply
going to be impossible to edit because there is corruption on that
page, I could theoretically skip the page, or keep skipping pages
until I find a point in the document where I can actually work, and
then tell the author that he will have to retype those pages. That is
a better solution that abandoning the entire document if it would
work. Would it? Indeed, if the document has to be abandoned both I
and the author have a potential problem, because he has written a 300
page dissertation which exists in this Word file and if that file is
totally unusable he is going to have to retype his entire
dissertation, probably without any guarantee that the same thing won't
happen again, and meanwhile I will be out the rather significant sum
of money I was going to get for editing it. Is there any hope of
solving this problem? It just occurred to me that it might be that
file corruption in this case is all or part of the problem because
usually what happens is it crashes and I start again and redo a page
or so but I am able to eventually proceed. Now I can't get through
one particular page because it keeps crashing on that page. I think
it's crash 20 times on this page.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Intersting thread. I don't know to uncorrupt a file that won't open.

Some good working practices that may help you:

: never ever put the entire 300 pages of something in one file in an
environment like you have (crashing machines). Presumably the doc has
chapters. One file per chapter, minimum.

: design a version control system and use it. If you can handle, get a
software product that does version management.

: email the files in zip format (years ago file transfer seemed to
corrupt files and we got in the habit of zipping them which seemed to
solve it).

: sure all your machines, including the writers' are free of malware?

: remember the project is to writing something--not fix your computer.
Switch to a good text editor and write it.


--rms

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Bill:

Good! We're starting to get some information to work with here Stick
with us, and we'll have you out of this problem shortly.

Please be aware that this will not be a "one email fix". We are working
down a hierarchy of issues here. You have more than one problem, and it's
going to take us several exchanges to get it all solved. If you get tempted
to give up half-way, things may soon revert to "not so good"

Now: I have asked for your software version numbers. I need you to go to
the Word menu (labelled "Word", next to the Apple logo) and choose the
"About Word" item.

I need the top three lines of black text that appears there. The first one
begins "Microsoft® Word..." I CANNOT help much until I get it these numbers.
I need every digit. I also need to know which version and update level of
OS X you are running, and how much RAM you have installed.

Please understand that we support about 20 different versions of Word in
here, on about 20 different operating systems. The answers to your problems
will be different for each.

I'm sorry that you say don't use Track Changes. I am a professional
editor and I have to use Track Changes because my clients need to be
able to accept or reject my edits.

I said "Use Compare Documents instead." Try that: Your client will get what
he wants, and you will get what you want (no crashes).

As for Word being stable on the PC, I wish it was stable on mine.

Let's do that one next Word crashing on the PC is usually malware of
some kind, and that can be a rather longer job...

Now, of course, I could partition my hard
drive and put Windows on one of the partitions and get Word for
Windows for my Macintosh and run it that way.

You "could", but that's doing things the hard way Get yourself a copy
of Parallels. I have Word 2010 running in Parallels on this Mac as I speak.
Coherence view makes it look and work just like a native Mac App. And you
don't have to partition your hard drive

So I moved all the Office applications to the trash
can and reinstalled Office from the disk. Didn't make any difference;
still crashes.

As I would expect. You have to run the Remove Office tool. If you don't,
when you re-install you make the problem worse. The installer will not
replace files that already exist. That means you get a "mixture" of
components, some old, some new. That causes crashes.

I tried installing updates, but I can't install
updates to Office because I get an error message that says that the
files needed to install Office updates are not on my hard drive.

That's the first thing we need to fix. I suspect that you are using OS
10.5.x. That was not out when Office 2008 was being made. Office 2008 was
designed for 10.4.0. Until you update, it will crash constantly.

First, disconnect any external drives you may have, including the network.
Until we get it updated, Office cannot cope with being moved around, or
being modified.

Now run the Remove Office tool. You should find it here:
System:Applications:Microsoft Office 2008:Additional Tools:Remove Office:

Note: If you delete any files first, the Remove Office tool will conclude
its job is done and quit without doing anything. So don't do that.

Now: Perform a full installation of Office 2008 TO THE BOOT PARTITION. In
other words, we need Office to land in the Applications folder in the same
partition of the same drive as the running operating system is. Again, you
can change this after we get it fully updated if you wish, but my strong
advice is "don't". Until we get it updated, if it's anywhere else, the
updates will fail. This is because OS 10.5 has a different directory
structure and a different Search mechanism from the one Office is expecting.

Then START and QUIT each of the Office applications. Allow each one to
complete starting, then just quit it. This writes a full set of Preference
files onto your hard disk, without which the updater can't find its way
around.

Next, I need you to visit http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx and
download the latest updater for your version. We don't know which one you
are using, so I can't tell you which one that is.

When the download completes, check your external drives are still
disconnected, then double-click it and apply it.

As for changing the spotlight
preferences, I don't know how to do that.

Open System Preferences: it's in the top row. Make sure Applications and
System Preferences are the top two items, and that both are checked.

So I am stuck wasting as much as an hour a day closing and
reopening Microsoft Word and redoing the previous five minutes worth
of work every time it crashes, 20, 30, 50 times a day.

No, you're not. You have multiple problems. When we get them fixed, Word
will run all day without a hiccup. It does for me. Let's get to work...

people tell me they are usually not very helpful, and they take your
money without even guaranteeing that they will solve your problem.
They told me they would probably just tell me to reinstall Office, and
I've done that.

Don't believe "people". They usually haven't a clue, and take a vicarious
delight in having you repeat their mistakes. When you go to the Dentist or
Doctor, don't try to tell me you get a comforting feeling from seeing their
degree framed on the wall. Computers are as complicated as what they do:
check the person's credentials before heeding their advice.

You wouldn't allow some "person" to edit your work, now would you? Not if
your reputation was at stake, you wouldn't. You would hire someone who
knows what they're doing in that field. You, for example! Get computer
advice of the same quality as the advice you give...

I am
curious why you say Office is stable on Windows/PC platforms when it
was never stable on either of mine.

Because I use it all day every day, and I have done since it was first
released.

I would have to know why Word also
crashed on my PCs and what reason I have for believing it won't crash
under Windows again if I do that.

Good point. If you stick around long enough in here, you WILL know that.
Right now, you are perfectly correct: if you go back to doing what you were
doing on the PC, you will get the same result you did get.

You have three problems (at least...):

1) Your system has not been maintained properly

2) Your application has not been maintained properly

3) Your documents are corrupted (maybe not by you, but that doesn't change
the fact...)

Right now, I am trying to help you with Problem 2. Apple will help you with
Problem 1. If you allow Software Update to run automatically on your Mac,
Apple probably already has applied the updates you needed.

For instance, I edit using Track Changes and then
review the text I've edited to make sure I didn't make any mistakes.

Stop doing that: it's not safe Edit your text without tracked changes.
Put in the revision markings later using Compare Documents. If you won't
break that habit, we can't help you much, on either platform.

You wind up with sentences that have both the deleted and
substituted words displaying, the deleted ones crossed out, and that
makes it very hard to read - you can imagine).

I don't have to imagine it, I see it every day. One of the things I insist
on with my staff is to run Word with Tracked Changes displayed in that view.
I can't prevent them from using tracked changes, because they won't listen
to reason until they get sick of the crashes. But I can insist that they
display both insertions and deletions, so at least they don't start piling
changes on top of each other and corrupt the document so badly they lose
several days' work.

Not when I am paying for it

Hope this helps

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Bill:

Continuing...

You also suggested that it may be file corruption. I wonder if I have
a corrupt file.

It is, and you have. Running un-updated copies of Office on OS 10.5 (you
STILL haven't told me your versions, I can't wing it much longer without
this information...) produces corrupt files. So if you have been doing that
for a while, then chances are every document you have ever worked on on that
computer IS corrupt.

The latest update to Office should fix the files when you open them. We
shall see...

Now I have spent two hours trying to work on
one page. Every time I do anything Word crashes, so I cannot get any
work done.

If you had believed me, you would have saved two hours

Supposing
the file is corrupt. Is there anything I can do to fix it? This is a
300 page document on which I have already spent ten hours working.

Yes, there is. But not until you get your copy of Office updated. If you
want to Zip that file up and send it to me, I will de-corrupt it for you.

I don't know if the file corruption, if that is what it is, was
introduced by me or by the author before sending it to me.

If you are working in academia, it is very likely the file was in a severe
state of ill-health before you even touched it. People tend not to learn
good word-processing habits until AFTER they get their degree and missed
deadlines start to cost them real money

Is there a way of finding out if the file is corrupt or
not?

Yes, there is, but not in Mac Word, it doesn't have the tools (yet). You
need an XML parser to tell you whether the XML in the document is OK. Even
that won't tell you much: just because the XML is OK does not mean Word can
read it!

The surest sign of a corrupt document is that Word crashes or behaves
weirdly when you try to edit it. Sometimes you can spot them by slowly
dragging the "Thumb" down the right-side vertical scrollbar. Watch the Page
Number pop-up as you do this. When you pass the corruption, the page
numbering will go crazy.

If it is corrupt, is there a way of fixing it?

Yes, there is. There are several, depending on what the problem is. Hang
around in here and you will soon be an expert at them.

And if it is
corrupt, is it possible that certain parts of it are what is corrupted
or are more corrupted than others?

Yes, that is OFTEN the case.

For example, if p. 89 is simply
going to be impossible to edit because there is corruption on that
page, I could theoretically skip the page, or keep skipping pages
until I find a point in the document where I can actually work, and
then tell the author that he will have to retype those pages.

Good! Well done! That is the beginning of the technique we sometimes call
"The Binary Search" and at other times "The Rule of Halves".

You first need to know that a Word file does not contain any "pages". Pages
do not exist in the file, and are not saved with the file. They are
inserted into the code stream dynamically when Word displays or prints the
file.

The fundamental "Unit" of a Word file is the "Paragraph". Chances are, it's
not a whole page that is bad in that file, just one or two paragraphs.

You can find and fix them pretty much the way you said: and they are usually
immediately before or after a table or graphic.

There's a quick way and a slow way. The quick way loses all the formatting
and all the graphics.

Note: No point in doing this until you've applied your updates: otherwise,
the file will corrupt again as soon as you edit it.

Quick Way:

1) Close the file.
2) From Word, use File>Open
3) Change "Enable" at the top of the dialog to "Recover text from any file"
4) Navigate to the file and click Open.

You will get just the text, no formatting, no graphics, no headers and
footers, no footnotes ...

If you have a little more time (a LOT more time...!)

Slow Way:

1) Open the document
2) Press Command + period (.) to stop the repagination.
3) Change the View to "Draft"

If Word crashes when you do this, then you will have to go back and get a
fresh copy of the document.

4) Divide the file in half, and save both halves under new file names.
Make sure you save in the new .docx format. You will never fix this if you
try to use the old format.
5) If there is only one corrupt paragraph, the bad one will be in one half
document, the other half document will behave properly.
6) Divide the bad half in half... And again... And again...
7) Keep this up until you have only one paragraph in each half Then
you know which the bad paragraph is.
8) Re-type the bad paragraph into the GOOD document. Do NOT copy any part
of the bad paragraph, or you will copy the problem and you'll have to start
over.

This method will keep everything in the document except the bad
paragraph(s).

I told you it was laborious! But if you have great patience, you will fix
the document this way.

Indeed, if the document has to be abandoned both I
and the author have a potential problem, because he has written a 300
page dissertation which exists in this Word file and if that file is
totally unusable he is going to have to retype his entire
dissertation, probably without any guarantee that the same thing won't
happen again, and meanwhile I will be out the rather significant sum
of money I was going to get for editing it.

Don't panic until you see the whites of their eyes Let's stay calm and
purposeful and work carefully and steadily towards our goal.

If the document will open at all, it is highly unlikely that you will lose
the lot. If the document is in .docx format, it's nearly impossible to be
unable to recover it.

It just occurred to me that it might be that
file corruption in this case is all or part of the problem because
usually what happens is it crashes and I start again and redo a page
or so but I am able to eventually proceed.

My pick is it is one of your THREE problems. We can fix it. But it's
important that we get your updates in before we do, if we don't the next
time you touch that file you will cause the corruption again, instantly.

Hope this helps

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Rob:

Intersting thread. I don't know to uncorrupt a file that won't open.

File>Open..."Recover text from any file".

Or if it is a .docx, you can unzip it and drag the XML out directly.

: never ever put the entire 300 pages of something in one file in an
environment like you have (crashing machines). Presumably the doc has
chapters. One file per chapter, minimum.

Modern versions of Word should be safe up to about 2,000 pages in a file,
provided you adopt good working practices. Over that size, it's a good idea
to split the file, simply because Word can get too slow to work unless
you're on a Mac Pro.

: sure all your machines, including the writers' are free of malware?

No, he's not. We can assume the writer is a Student and that his machine
contains a current copy of practically every piece of malware ever written.

Students have, almost by definition, yet to learn that "Free" software,
music, and videos almost always comes with unwanted "extras". And since
they won't pay for their antivirus program either, they don't find out about
that until they infect someone else's machine

A mate of mine who does academic editing does it ALL in a virtual machine.
He has one VM per customer. He allows that customers files into ONLY that
machine, and deletes it when he sends the file back to the customer.

Cheers

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Rob Schneider]

--rms

Hi Rob:



File>Open..."Recover text from any file".

Or if it is a .docx, you can unzip it and drag the XML out directly.

Thanks. Will store advice that away. Main reason I don't know how
recover files is due to inexperience at doing it. Been using Word since
Version 4.0 in DOS world and have had to deal with corrupted files only
a very few times.

Modern versions of Word should be safe up to about 2,000 pages in a file,
provided you adopt good working practices. Over that size, it's a good idea
to split the file, simply because Word can get too slow to work unless
you're on a Mac Pro.

Yes, but he's having problems and by trying to make it work he's just
losing work. Mitigate the risk. yes, it "can" and it "should", but
"why"?

Reduce pain on the brain by chunking up the work. Chunking up the work
also helps in the team environment by enabling simultaneous working on
different bits of the same thing. Chunking things up is a habit that
I've gotten into not only for Word doc's, but also in the projects
around those documents.

No, he's not. We can assume the writer is a Student and that his machine
contains a current copy of practically every piece of malware ever written.

Agree. And it's all somebody else's fault. And they've let the
"problem" be the computer and fixing the computer, instead of
remembering the problem is to write the paper.

I had a person working in my departement once who was leading a big
project to write a new set of corporate policy documents. She had a
large team of authors and they spent a lot of time struggling with
corrupted files, files that would not print-out as they wish, etc.
She/they refused to use Word templates and styles, She/they refused to
use non-complex formats (everything, and I mean *everything*, was
written inside of Word tables because they wanted it to be "simple" and
they like borders on every page), she/they refused to chunk up the work
(hence no simultaneous working and worse, no plan), they refused to use
anything more capable than email and file shares to store the works in
progress. What should have taken at most 1-2 months, took much longer.
After 9 months we pulled the plug. To this day they continue to
believe and blame the cause of the failed project on "that crappy word
processor from Microsoft".

Students have, almost by definition, yet to learn that "Free" software,
music, and videos almost always comes with unwanted "extras". And since
they won't pay for their antivirus program either, they don't find out about
that until they infect someone else's machine

A mate of mine who does academic editing does it ALL in a virtual machine.
He has one VM per customer. He allows that customers files into ONLY that
machine, and deletes it when he sends the file back to the customer.

Good idea. I have a client with whom for various "defensive" reasons I
think this will be a good approach.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Rob:

Yes, but he's having problems and by trying to make it work he's just
losing work. Mitigate the risk. yes, it "can" and it "should", but
"why"?

Reduce pain on the brain by chunking up the work. Chunking up the work
also helps in the team environment by enabling simultaneous working on
different bits of the same thing. Chunking things up is a habit that
I've gotten into not only for Word doc's, but also in the projects
around those documents.

Yes, I agree. However, that then exposes the project to the risk that not
all the people on the project may have your level of expertise.

As you well know, it takes a set of robust procedures, good working
practices, and some effective project management standards, to carry this
off. Given the kind of environment you have in a professional documentation
production workgroup, I agree quite strongly that you split the project into
parts.

But if the project administration, version control, and quality management
has any weaknesses, you can end up with more of a bowl-of-spaghetti problem
trying to produce the final version.

In a one-person editing business with an amateur (read: academic!) author
who is also the customer, and therefore can't be controlled, I suspect the
"risk" actually rises

Agree. And it's all somebody else's fault. And they've let the
"problem" be the computer and fixing the computer, instead of
remembering the problem is to write the paper.

You're preaching to the converted here

I had a person working in my departement once who was leading a big
project to write a new set of corporate policy documents. She had a
large team of authors and they spent a lot of time struggling with
corrupted files, files that would not print-out as they wish, etc.
She/they refused to use Word templates and styles, She/they refused to
use non-complex formats (everything, and I mean *everything*, was
written inside of Word tables because they wanted it to be "simple" and
they like borders on every page), she/they refused to chunk up the work
(hence no simultaneous working and worse, no plan), they refused to use
anything more capable than email and file shares to store the works in
progress. What should have taken at most 1-2 months, took much longer.
After 9 months we pulled the plug. To this day they continue to
believe and blame the cause of the failed project on "that crappy word
processor from Microsoft".

Wait, didn't I work on that project??

I think what most people miss is that "Word" is not the problem. The
software industry has done the world a great disservice by pretending that
their software is "easy". Microsoft's "where do you want to go today" and
Apple's "Think different" slogans were among the most destructive.

The software may be "easy" to use. But the job we're trying to do is NOT.
And if you don't know how, NOW is the time to get advice, not the day before
your deadline. I personally know several of us in here who do major
documentation production for a living. We're just waiting to pass our
experience, strength, and hope on to the next bunch coming along behinds us


"Think different" is a great idea if the activity at hand is artistic
creation. But major document production is NOT "a work of artistic
expression". It's a piece of engineering. "Quality" is not some undefined
characteristic of "goodness": it is the most cost-efficient exact
conformance to specifications that can be achieved.

Once we get Bill up and running, we will soon be able to double his
profitability, allowing him to spend much less time worrying about the
machinery, leaving a much greater proportion of his time for billable work


Cheers

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Ken]

I hope that my experience will help.
I get documents to edit from various sources and every now and again I
get a bad document. Symptoms include:

Word crashes when scrolling down beyond a certain page
or, cannot view headers and footers
or, cannot view beyond a certain page
or, cannot open some of the tools or features
etc.
The symptoms are the same whether the document is opened in Word 2003
or 2007.

Invariably the problem is caused by Track Changes. Like Bill, my
clients unfortunately insist on using Track Changes.

To solve the problem, I use the file halving technique that John
McGhie suggests to find the offending change, then accept that change
only leaving the other changes therefore keeping the client happy.

Recently, I had a problem document that had 2000 changes in 150
pages. Furthermore, when this document was loaded, Word would not
bring up the Track Changes dialog box. So I wrote a four line macro to
perform Accept Changes of marked text. I was able to find the problem
in 6 iterations in about 10 minutes.

The macro is:
Sub AcceptMarkedRange()
ActiveDocument.ShowRevisions = True
Selection.Range.Revisions.AcceptAll
End Sub

Working with a copy of the document, select half the document and run
the macro. If the symptom persists halve the remaining half and
repeat. If the symptom is fixed, then the problem is in the selected
text and it is necessary to re-load the document and subdivide on the
previously selected range.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Ken:

Yes, that's a useful addition to the "Rule of Halves" debugging method.

Mac Word 2008 has no VBA, so we have to simply divide the document and
"Select All", but it accomplishes the same thing.

It can also be useful to Copy and paste into a new document: that
automatically "Accepts" all the deletions, leaving only the insertions.

Thanks for your input!

I hope that my experience will help.
I get documents to edit from various sources and every now and again I
get a bad document. Symptoms include:

Word crashes when scrolling down beyond a certain page
or, cannot view headers and footers
or, cannot view beyond a certain page
or, cannot open some of the tools or features
etc.
The symptoms are the same whether the document is opened in Word 2003
or 2007.

Invariably the problem is caused by Track Changes. Like Bill, my
clients unfortunately insist on using Track Changes.

To solve the problem, I use the file halving technique that John
McGhie suggests to find the offending change, then accept that change
only leaving the other changes therefore keeping the client happy.

Recently, I had a problem document that had 2000 changes in 150
pages. Furthermore, when this document was loaded, Word would not
bring up the Track Changes dialog box. So I wrote a four line macro to
perform Accept Changes of marked text. I was able to find the problem
in 6 iterations in about 10 minutes.

The macro is:
Sub AcceptMarkedRange()
ActiveDocument.ShowRevisions = True
Selection.Range.Revisions.AcceptAll
End Sub

Working with a copy of the document, select half the document and run
the macro. If the symptom persists halve the remaining half and
repeat. If the symptom is fixed, then the problem is in the selected
text and it is necessary to re-load the document and subdivide on the
previously selected range.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Bill;

You're in the best of hands with John at the helm but I wanted to expand on
one specific point;

I tried reinstalling Office because the first time I forgot to remove
the old version.

Re-installing is *rarely* the way to resolve issues such as you've described
on a Mac, and ‹ unlike a Windows box ‹ multiple versions of the same program
can not only reside side-by-side but can be run simultaneously.

So I moved all the Office applications to the trash
can and reinstalled Office from the disk

..... And if re-installing does prove to be necessary this is not the way to
go about it ‹ at least not for complex applications & suites of apps such as
Office. All you basically accomplish is copying the program files back to
your HD, but those files virtually never go bad in the first place.

There are numerous files created at the time of installation. They are
located in specific folders, not within the Applications folder & those
files do not get replaced when you re=install. Those are the files that most
likely cause the misbehavior ‹ *if* that's the cause in the first pace. As
John has pointed out, however, it sounds like the primary source of your
issues is actually the document files, themselves.

Didn't make any difference;
still crashes.

Yep, for the reason cited above. Think of it this way... You had a car whose
tires kept going flat, so you bought a new car & put the same old tires on
it... Guess what?

I tried installing updates, but I can't install
updates to Office because I get an error message that says that the
files needed to install Office updates are not on my hard drive.

That's because among the files that didn't get replaced during the
re-install [due to the method you used] are the ones that tell the installer
what version is already there. The problem is compounded because those
support files contain new version info which conflicts with the older stuff
that did get restored with the re-installation... There's no longer any
synchronicity between the two sets of files.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Bill Heidbreder, Apt. 5C]

Hi Ken:

Yes, that's a useful addition to the "Rule of Halves" debugging method.

Mac Word 2008 has no VBA, so we have to simply divide the document and
"Select All", but it accomplishes the same thing.

It can also be useful to Copy and paste into a new document: that
automatically "Accepts" all the deletions, leaving only the insertions.

Thanks for your input!









This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

 --

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

I have set about doing all the things John McGhie has recommended. I
removed Office and reinstalled it and was finally able to install the
updates. Now so far it seems to be crashing less, though it is still
crashing. I am going to try it for a little while with Track Changes
on, and if that doesn't work, I will try it without it. I divided the
300 page manuscript into chapters. It does seem like chapter 1, which
is 90 pages, and thankfully finished, is completely unstable with the
Track Changes in it (I saved a copy with all the changes accepted).
Basically that version is unusable.

The reason I am reluctant to use document compare is it first that I
find it doesn't always work. I am pretty sure I have always used it
correctly but I don't always get the results expected. And secondly,
it doesn't produce as clean-looking a document as Track Changes with
the deletions in the margins and the additions in the text.

It is true that it crashes much less often on my PC. So maybe the
next thing to do is to get Parallels and Word for Windows. Although
I'd be happy if I didn't have to buy yet another piece of software,
since I already have Word for Mac.

John asked me for data on versions. I am running Word 2008 for Mac,
version 12.0.0 (071130). I have Mac OS X 10.5.7. I have 1 GB of
RAM.

Bill Heidbreder

 

[Bill Heidbreder, Apt. 5C]

Hi Bill;

You're in the best of hands with John at the helm but I wanted to expand on
one specific point;

I tried reinstalling Office because the first time I forgot to remove
the old version.

Re-installing is *rarely* the way to resolve issues such as you've described
on a Mac, and ‹ unlike a Windows box ‹ multiple versions of the same program
can not only reside side-by-side but can be run simultaneously.

 So I moved all the Office applications to the trash
can and reinstalled Office from the disk

.... And if re-installing does prove to be necessary this is not the way to
go about it ‹ at least not for complex applications & suites of apps such as
Office. All you basically accomplish is copying the program files back to
your HD, but those files virtually never go bad in the first place.

There are numerous files created at the time of installation. They are
located in specific folders, not within the Applications folder & those
files do not get replaced when you re=install. Those are the files thatmost
likely cause the misbehavior ‹ *if* that's the cause in the firstpace. As
John has pointed out, however, it sounds like the primary source of your
issues is actually the document files, themselves.

 > Didn't make any difference;

still crashes.

Yep, for the reason cited above. Think of it this way... You had a car whose
tires kept going flat, so you bought a new car & put the same old tires on
it... Guess what?

 I tried installing updates, but I can't install
updates to Office because I get an error message that says that the
files needed to install Office updates are not on my hard drive.

That's because among the files that didn't get replaced during the
re-install [due to the method you used] are the ones that tell the installer
what version is already there. The problem is compounded because those
support files contain new version info which conflicts with the older stuff
that did get restored with the re-installation... There's no longer any
synchronicity between the two sets of files.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Someone brought up the possibility of malware. What is malware, and
how do you find it and how do you get rid of it?

I am trying to post to the group and not email people. I am not sure
if I am supposed to click follow-up to or just reply. I hope I am
doing it right.

Bill

 

[Bill Heidbreder, Apt. 5C]

I have set about doing all the things John McGhie has recommended.  I
removed Office and reinstalled it and was finally able to install the
updates.   Now so far it seems to be crashing less, though it is still
crashing.  I am going to try it for a little while with Track Changes
on, and if that doesn't work, I will try it without it.  I divided the
300 page manuscript into chapters.  It does seem like chapter 1, which
is 90 pages, and thankfully finished, is completely unstable with the
Track Changes in it (I saved a copy with all the changes accepted).
Basically that version is unusable.

The reason I am reluctant to use document compare is it first that I
find it doesn't always work.  I am pretty sure I have always used it
correctly but I don't always get the results expected.  And secondly,
it doesn't produce as clean-looking a document as Track Changes with
the deletions in the margins and the additions in the text.

It is true that it crashes much less often on my PC.  So maybe the
next thing to do is to get Parallels and Word for Windows.  Although
I'd be happy if I didn't have to buy yet another piece of software,
since I already have Word for Mac.

John asked me for data on versions.  I am running Word 2008 for Mac,
version 12.0.0 (071130).  I have Mac OS X 10.5.7.  I have 1 GB of
RAM.

Bill Heidbreder

Someone mentioned malware. What is it, how do you find it, and how do
you remove it?

 

[CyberTaz]

I have set about doing all the things John McGhie has recommended. I
removed Office and reinstalled it and was finally able to install the
updates. Now so far it seems to be crashing less, though it is still
crashing. I am going to try it for a little while with Track Changes
on, and if that doesn't work, I will try it without it. I divided the
300 page manuscript into chapters. It does seem like chapter 1, which
is 90 pages, and thankfully finished, is completely unstable with the
Track Changes in it (I saved a copy with all the changes accepted).
Basically that version is unusable.

The reason I am reluctant to use document compare is it first that I
find it doesn't always work. I am pretty sure I have always used it
correctly but I don't always get the results expected. And secondly,
it doesn't produce as clean-looking a document as Track Changes with
the deletions in the margins and the additions in the text.

It is true that it crashes much less often on my PC. So maybe the
next thing to do is to get Parallels and Word for Windows. Although
I'd be happy if I didn't have to buy yet another piece of software,
since I already have Word for Mac.

John asked me for data on versions. I am running Word 2008 for Mac,
version 12.0.0 (071130). I have Mac OS X 10.5.7. I have 1 GB of
RAM.

Bill Heidbreder

Hi Bill;

You now need to run Check for Updates from the Help menu in order to
re-apply SP1 & SP2 followed by the 12.2.1 update. Re-installing has left you
at the original release version 12.0.0 [see those digits which follow the
version number? That's the date of your present version release, 30 November
2007) -- another of the drawbacks imposed by re-installing. Once you've done
that, use Disk Utility - Repair Disk Permissions, then restart your Mac.

Follow the suggestions here for best likelihood of successfully updating:

http://www.entourage.mvps.org/install/update_steps.html

I think you'll find that -- once all the pieces are in place -- Word will be
far more stable -- although corrupt documents will continue to plague both
Word & you... Corruption doesn't "go away" of its own accord regardless of
how well the software & system are maintained Have you had a chance to
look at the web page I originally pointed you to? One of the links
specifically addresses uncorrupting documents.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Bill:

I am going to try it for a little while with Track Changes
on, and if that doesn't work, I will try it without it.

Just to split hairs: Tracked Changes ON or OFF will make no difference.
It's the presences of the Tracked Changes in the document that causes the
crashes. In other words, if you edit a document that contains tracked
changes, that will corrupt the document, whether you are still tracking
changes or not.

The reason I am reluctant to use document compare is it first that I
find it doesn't always work. I am pretty sure I have always used it
correctly but I don't always get the results expected.

Correct. It was very buggy in previous versions. We climbed all over
Microsoft about it, and there were major improvements in Word 2003, 2007 and
2008. It is now almost perfect.

John asked me for data on versions. I am running Word 2008 for Mac,
version 12.0.0 (071130). I have Mac OS X 10.5.7. I have 1 GB of
RAM.

At LAST OK, we have hard information we can work with

Word should now be showing 12.2.0, last installed update 12.2.1. If not,
those updates still haven't gone in.

If you really have only 1 GB of RAM, no wonder its crashing: I am surprised
that it's running at all, on long documents

Office needs 2GB of RAM on an Intel. I have 16 GB on this workstation: I
can't afford to be wasting billable hours on crashes and hangs

When the computer runs out of memory, it starts sucking hard disk space to
act as "Virtual Memory". When that happens, the disk gets furiously busy.
When the disk is busy, little errors creep in to the data (it's a high-speed
mechanical device after all, and made in China by the cheapest possible
bidder...). Those little errors in the data will eventually exceed the
ability of the system to fix, and get through uncorrected. RAM is like air:
let it breathe

Hope this helps


This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Bill:

Someone brought up the possibility of malware. What is malware, and
how do you find it and how do you get rid of it?

Malware is "any software that does bad things". Viruses and the like.

Your indications are not consistent with malware on your machine. There may
well be malware on your customer's machine. If the customer is a student in
academia you should ASSUME that their machine in lousy with viruses, trojans
and whatever else is going around like the common cold.

The simplest way to handle it is to buy a copy of Virus Barrier Pro from
Apple and let it do its thing. Machines used to earn a living should always
have operating anti-virus protection and a firewall.

But I don't think this is the cause of your immediate problems, so we might
wait until we get a bit more RAM in that box (you don;t have enough RAM to
run virus protection, currently...)

I am trying to post to the group and not email people. I am not sure
if I am supposed to click follow-up to or just reply. I hope I am
doing it right.

You're doing it right

Cheers

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]