Word locks up opening some DOCx files

[bostonbri]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel I have created a few word documents in Word 2007 on a PC. I brouhgt them home and cannot open. Word freezes up and have to quit the program then "REPORT or Ignore". This is only on certain documents. I have other files, doc, docx on Mac and open fine.
I have 12.2.3 version of word, updated it. Could it be a font issue? thanks.

 

[John McGhie]

The most likely issue is a missing update from Word 2007 on the PC.

Word 2007 had a bug where it was writing bad XML. Since Word 2007 wrote it,
it would automatically copy with it, and nobody noticed until Mac Word
started crashing because the code was bad.

Make sure Word 2007 is fully up-to-date, and then delete the Normal.dotm
template from Word 2007.

To fix the documents, you will need to open them in Word 2007 after the
update, and Save As to a different file.

Cheers

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel
I have created a few word documents in Word 2007 on a PC. I brouhgt them home
and cannot open. Word freezes up and have to quit the program then "REPORT or
Ignore". This is only on certain documents. I have other files, doc, docx on
Mac and open fine.
I have 12.2.3 version of word, updated it. Could it be a font issue? thanks.

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

 

[bostonbri]

Great I will try that. I did do alot of 2007 updates SP1, then SP2, then KB updates to Word etc. I did open after the update, but didn't do what you suggested about normal.dot and renaming. I may copy and paste as well to a new word document and try that also.

thanks.

 

[bostonbri]

This did not work. it still freezes after doing what you suggested. Any other ideas?

 

[John McGhie]

Now you're being difficult

Check that you have 12.2.3 update in place on Office 2008, and OS 10.6.2
update in place for OS X. Also: Just ensure that Word 2008 will still open
a document that was "not" created by Word 2007.

Then use FontBook to Find Duplicates, then Resolve Duplicates.

Then use Disk Utility to repair permissions on the boot drive.

Then shut down and wait for the machine to turn off.

Then re-start (which will perform the Unix clean-up tasks).

Then try again. If it's not fixed this time, we'll have to delete the Prefs
on the Mac side.

When you re-saved the document out of a fully-updated Word 2007, it "should"
have fixed the document so that a fully-updated copy of Word 2008 can read
it without a problem.

Sadly, there are some things Word 2007 can create in a file that Word 2008
can't handle. But it's not supposed to crash (or freeze). It "should"
simply ignore the content it doesn't understand.

Hang in there...

This did not work. it still freezes after doing what you suggested. Any
other ideas?

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

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Brian:

See my previous post: no, I don't think it's a font issue, I think it's a
"document content" issue. A Font Issue results in "peculiar behaviour"
(freezing, usually) not "failure to open".

After the reinstall of MS2008 the fontbook showed the same duplicates
of fonts due to MS2008. Font book had 0 errors before the reinstall of
MS2008.

Yes, that's expected. A re-install will put BACK the Microsoft fonts.
Currently, Apple does not provide any useable or reliable way for the
installer to ask the system whether any given font "currently exists" before
installation. There's just no reliable way to find out if it's already
there! Next time you have Steve Jobs round to dinner, if you could mention
this, the Microsoft Developers would be very grateful...

Normally, you should use FontBook and resolve the duplicates by keeping the
MOST RECENT version of each of the fonts, which is usually the Microsoft one
(depending on when you bought your computer...)

Cheers


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