What to do when Word constantly crashes?

[Bill Heidbreder, Apt. 5C]

Hi Bill:



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...)


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]

How much RAM do you think I need, John? You say that 1 GB is not
enough to run virus protection. I have Norton Anti-Virus on this
machine. It runs automatically, but I just ran it manually also on
the files I have been working on. It reported that there are no
viruses. Is Norton not good enough? If the solution is to add RAM
and buy a different anti-virus software, I will do that right away,
once I know how much RAM to add.

 

[Bill Heidbreder, Apt. 5C]

Hi Bill:



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.


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.


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 likeair:
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]

I'm sorry, you answered that question in an earlier email. So I need
to have 2 GB of RAM. Ok, I'll add 1 GB. I still want to know if
Norton Anti-virus is good enough or if I need the other anti-virus
program instead.

 

[Bill Heidbreder, Apt. 5C]

Hi Bill:



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.


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.


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 likeair:
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]

I clicked the button on the installation pop-up window to search for
and install updates and it found only one update and installed it.
But that is 12.1.0. I wonder how I get the more recent updates.

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Bill,

just run AutoUpdate a few more times until you have all the updates you
need. The latest version of Word is 12.2.1, which means you'll have to
install SP2 and the 12.2.1 update.

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Bill,

to be honest, many people doubt the utility of an anti-virus application on
the Mac. There are no known viruses for Mac OS X in the wild, and the only
purpose for an anti-virus on the Mac is to scan infected files from PC users
to make sure you do not pass on files that could potentially damage other
users' systems.

 

[Clive Huggan]

On 17/8/09 11:23 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "Bill

So I need to have 2 GB of RAM. Ok, I'll add 1 GB.

Fine if you have most other applications closed while you work in Word,
Bill. But if you want to have several open, including "memory leakers", I
strongly recommend 4 GB if your Mac can take it. RAM is cheap at present;
it's the best investment you can make.

(Ignore John's reference to 16 GB; he's still in lurv -- with a Mac Pro he
just bought. If you want to buy cheap popularity, just ask him -- oh,
anything, such as "How is your Mac Pro configured, John?) ;-))

Clive Huggan
Also from Oz
=============

 

[Clive Huggan]

And on the Mac, Norton Anti-virus is often reported as causing problems. I
don't know what in detail, because I use something else.

Clive Huggan
=============

 

[Clive Huggan]

On 16/8/09 5:52 PM, in article C6ADF7C5.2165%[email protected], "John McGhie"

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

Hello Bill,

If you want to see how this can be used, take a look at pages 67-71 of some
notes on the way I use Word for the Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will",
which are available as a free download from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

You may find some interesting information too if you do a Find command in
"Bend Word to Your Will" for "corrup".

And, as someone using Word for 6+ hours a day and toing-and-froing documents
between Macs and PCs all the time, I can tell you the order of reliability
you can look forward to: until 4 weeks ago, I'd had had two crashes in the
past year. (Recently there has been a problem after I hit "Print" since I
installed 10.5.6; but as Rob Schneider said, "remember the project is to
writing something--not fix your computer".) My learned colleagues in this
newsgroup have similar levels of reliability. It's achievable. And the
benefit to your productivity, hence profits, is substantial.

But I do use Word 2004.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the Americas and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
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[John McGhie]

Hi Bill: You do get me into trouble, you know Antivirus software is
very much a "religious argument"

If you have been running Norton all along, your system is quite safe from
malware of every kind...

However, that may explain some of the crashes and freezes.

Long experience of Norton suggests to me that it often causes more problems
than it cures. It is too much of a good thing. I admit that my knowledge
is a bit out of date. People used to be harshly critical of Norton for the
amount of memory and CPU it gobbled and the general slowness of any system
running it. I know the company worked hard to respond to these (accurate!)
criticisms, so I would expect any modern version to be a lot better.

I certainly wouldn't throw it out now you have paid for it. If anything, it
gives you MORE protection than you need. But "too much" is always better
than "not enough"

For Microsoft Office to be fast and stable, under OS 10.5.x, you need 2 GB
of RAM. Provided you are not running much else.

For "Professional" work such as you are doing, I would try to go higher if
you can. If you are running Norton, add 500 MB. If you want your browser
to work properly, and maybe Endnote, that's another 500, so 3 GB is good.

Depending on the Mac you have, there is a hard limit on how much the
motherboard can take. Older Intel Macs topped out at 2GB. The ones in
between at 3GB. The current ones will take 4 GB or 8 GB, depending which
model you have. You can look it up on the Apple website.

Personally, I would fill 'er up, full as she will go. From 1 GB to 2 GB you
will get about a ten times speed improvement. From 2 to 4 speed will almost
double again, on long or complex documents. For professional work, the only
thing you will notice going from 4 to 8 is "less crashes".

Now: NOBODY buys memory from Apple. Their prices are truly outrageous
That said, I notice that Apple RAM has dropped sharply in price since the
onset of the Global Financial Crisis. But they wanted exactly $10,000 to
double the memory in this workstation, so I regretfully said "No"

I buy my Mac bits from Other World Computing (Macsales) on the web. You can
get cheaper, but with Mac Sales I find it always fits and it always works,
and they will take it back no questions asked if it doesn't work. (No, I
don't work for them....)

Hope this helps...

How much RAM do you think I need, John? You say that 1 GB is not
enough to run virus protection. I have Norton Anti-Virus on this
machine. It runs automatically, but I just ran it manually also on
the files I have been working on. It reported that there are no
viruses. Is Norton not good enough? If the solution is to add RAM
and buy a different anti-virus software, I will do that right away,
once I know how much RAM to add.

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]

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

Clive on that note the Virus Barrier Pro Recommended causes as many if
not more than Norton. I tried the free version on my Powerbook 1.67GB
2GB RAM 17". and it went from running like a 100meter dash runner to
the same man trying to run in a vat of molasses. in going to to Apple's
page for pro if you read comments, for every 2 good comment 5 star there
is one, one star with the complaint slowing the Mac to a crawl.

Norton on OS 9 worked as follows the first scan it scanned everything
from top to bottom it was saved in Database. then as items were added or
changed only the added or changed items (could be changed components of
applications not just files) were scanned.

Now all virus program for Mac scan everything from top to bottom whether
changed or not imagine having to scan 10 million items. I use a program
called MacScan and it has two methods of scanning one is a light scan
just scans specific files. the other a full scan in there info on
website, say a full scan may take hours. I'm thinking about initiating a
scan at bed time just to let if get finished by morning. the only way
you could do a virus scan reasonably quick is to use an MacIntel,
possibly a quad-core processor, and computer have 10-12GB system Ram.

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

I've used Mac Warehouse in the past and never go a bad one from them.

 

[Clive Huggan]

Thanks, Phillip. Interesting!

Clive
=====

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Phillip:

Modern malware is sophisticated, intricate, and difficult to detect.
Effective anti-malware systems must therefore contain much more than
antivirus modules, and intercept many more parts of the operating system.

Consequently, a 1.67 GHz G4 with only 2 GB of RAM and Mac OS 10.5 running is
over-taking things a bit, and it will slow down. Chances are the people
down-rating the program are running it on under-specified hardware with all
of their applications launched at once. It will grind a bit

The Intel boxes on sale now have a lot more punch and they don't notice the
drag as much.

I always thought McAfee was much less hungry and didn't slow the system at
all (at least, on my Mac Book it was...) but you can't buy fewer than five
licences in Australia, which makes it an extremely expensive solution!

Even on the Mac Pro, I don't enable the "Full Scan" routinely. I have
on-access scanning enabled. Once you have performed a full scan, no new
virus can get in, provided you leave on-access scanning enabled.

I don't see the sense in beating up the HDD looking for problems that cannot
be there

But yes, if I were running a web server, I would indeed run a full scan
every day, and I would indeed run it at the quietest time of the day.

If your full scan runs longer than about three hours, it might be useful to
have a look at those disk drives: they may be too full and thus badly
fragmented.

Generally, a Mac drive won't start to fragment badly until it gets above 80
per cent full. The exception is any disk used for recording movies: they
are large contiguous files that tend to get fragmented anyway.

Hope this helps

Clive on that note the Virus Barrier Pro Recommended causes as many if
not more than Norton. I tried the free version on my Powerbook 1.67GB
2GB RAM 17". and it went from running like a 100meter dash runner to
the same man trying to run in a vat of molasses. in going to to Apple's
page for pro if you read comments, for every 2 good comment 5 star there
is one, one star with the complaint slowing the Mac to a crawl.

Norton on OS 9 worked as follows the first scan it scanned everything
from top to bottom it was saved in Database. then as items were added or
changed only the added or changed items (could be changed components of
applications not just files) were scanned.

Now all virus program for Mac scan everything from top to bottom whether
changed or not imagine having to scan 10 million items. I use a program
called MacScan and it has two methods of scanning one is a light scan
just scans specific files. the other a full scan in there info on
website, say a full scan may take hours. I'm thinking about initiating a
scan at bed time just to let if get finished by morning. the only way
you could do a virus scan reasonably quick is to use an MacIntel,
possibly a quad-core processor, and computer have 10-12GB system Ram.

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]

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

One thing I need to add I am using X.4.11 not X.5. I figured from the
start I needed more horses to run X>5 or 6 than what I have. And x.6
won't run on a PowerPC machine.

 

[rsngt]

Hi,

I too rely on Word for my consulting business, and have a very similar
problem.

Many of the documents (.doc and .docx) that I edit are fine under Office
2007 in Windows, but constantly crash my Word 2008. I think I have traced
the problem to a combination of having "Save Auto Recovery" turned on, and
saving to a network drive (Samba). If I save locally, or turn off Auto
recovery, then I can edit these troublesome documents happily.

(Note though that not all documents were effected by crashing, only some, so
there is obviously something in those documents that, when combined with
saving over a network and saving auto-recovery files, causes problems for
Word 2008.)

I also have a quite separate issue whereby some of my client's documents
contain tables in the headers and footers. Where the column widths of these
are set to percentages, the documents continually cause crashes. If I change
the widths to fixed size (cm or inches) then the documents are fine.

Hopefully this one, and the first in particular, may help someone else.
Even better, they might help someone at Microsoft fix Word 2008.

 

[John McGhie]

Make sure you have the VERY latest patch to Word 2008 applied: 12.2.1...

Microsoft found and fixed ONE of the issues that cause this in that patch.

Also ensure that Word 2007 has its very latest patch applied. The problem
was actually CAUSED by Word 2007 writing bad things into the file.
Microsoft didn't notice because Word 2007 had the ability to detect and fix
the bad code, but Mac Word didn't and it would crash.

Word 2007 has now been patched to stop producing illegible handwriting, and
Word 2008 has been patched to find it and fix it.

That's an interesting observation about the tables in headers and footers.
Tables in headers and footers have been a problem for about 20 years in
Word, so we normally encourage people not to put them there Most of the
time you will "get away with it" in modern versions of Word. But sometimes,
you still won't...

Hope this helps

Hi,

I too rely on Word for my consulting business, and have a very similar
problem.

Many of the documents (.doc and .docx) that I edit are fine under Office
2007 in Windows, but constantly crash my Word 2008. I think I have traced
the problem to a combination of having "Save Auto Recovery" turned on, and
saving to a network drive (Samba). If I save locally, or turn off Auto
recovery, then I can edit these troublesome documents happily.

(Note though that not all documents were effected by crashing, only some, so
there is obviously something in those documents that, when combined with
saving over a network and saving auto-recovery files, causes problems for
Word 2008.)

I also have a quite separate issue whereby some of my client's documents
contain tables in the headers and footers. Where the column widths of these
are set to percentages, the documents continually cause crashes. If I change
the widths to fixed size (cm or inches) then the documents are fine.

Hopefully this one, and the first in particular, may help someone else.
Even better, they might help someone at Microsoft fix Word 2008.

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]

 

[Andrew]

I'm a newbie here, so please pardon any faux pas...

I'm also having problems with Word crashes possibly related to track
changes and footnotes. I'm running Word 2004 for Mac Version 11.5.5 on
my Macbook Pro with OS X 10.5.8. I have checked for software updates
and installed them.

My problems seem to have started with a particular document with both
track changes and footnotes. After reading this forum, I see both can
cause problems, tho I've used track changes for years with no major
problems. Now my problem document won't even open in Word 2004 (which
crashed when I try). I can open in Word X, but can't save it even
after deleting the footnotes (or doing anything else). I've requested
the creator (who is on a PC) to send it back to me with the footnotes
deleted - we'll see if that helps.

A second, and perhaps more serious, issue is with Compare Documents -
I've used this occasionally in the past with no problem. But now when
I try this with any document (even a dummy document with only 1 word
in it), Word hangs for a bit, and then brings up a weird "Choose a
File" Finder window which is blank and seemingly infinitely wide,
along with the spinning daisy of death. This is a particular concern
because it's suggested in this forum as a workaround for "track
changes".

Thanks for your suggestions!

Andy

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hi Andrew,

I'm a newbie here, so please pardon any faux pas...

I'm also having problems with Word crashes possibly related to track
changes and footnotes. I'm running Word 2004 for Mac Version 11.5.5 on
my Macbook Pro with OS X 10.5.8. I have checked for software updates
and installed them.

Did you check the fonts on your Mac?
Launch /Application/Font Book and select all the fonts there command to
identify any potential troublemaker.


Corentin