33,000 extra pages!

[christophermark]

I have a 7 page document with endnotes ready to print. For some reason,
whenever I open it, the document bar at the very bottom of the window
(showing page, sec. page/pages, etc) starts adding pages without input on my
part. Once I left it running for couple hours or more and came back to find
it had racked up over 33,000 extra pages. Of course the document won't print.
This problem applies only to this document, not to other word documents. It
is obviously corrupt though I have had not other problems revising the
document, add and shifting endnotes. I have tried saving as a new doc,
copying and pasting the doc into a new doc, without joy. In every case the
trouble travels. Any suggestiions on how to waggle out of this one would be
greatly appreciated. I am up against a journal deadline. (P.S.: this doc was
initially created on PC in Windows 98 and transferred over to the mac. All
the new work has been done exclusively on the Mac) I am operating in 0S X
tiger4.8, on a G5 PowerPC.

Thanks in advance for your time and consideration

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Christopher,

You need to do the copy and paste *without* the last paragraph mark. See
this article for the step-by-step:
<http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DocumentCorruption.html>

And if the copy/paste method doesn't work, try the save-as-webpage method as
well.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
My Site: <http://www.bethrosengard.com>

 

[CyberTaz]

As you found, Save As will *not* cure the hiccups, nor will the copy/paste
if you copied the last para marker follwing the actual content of the dco -
I'm assuming that the extra pages are blank.

Try copying all but the last para marker, paste to a new blank doc & save
with a different name.

If that doesn't give you a doc that behaves, post back with more specifics
about the content/structure (graphics, tables, section breaks, your
endnotes, etc.). You may also want to take a look at the troubleshooting &
diagnosing info here:

http://word.mvps.org/Mac/TroubleshootingIndex.html

 

[christophermark]

Thanks, Bob. As explained to Beth earlier (though I don't see it posted) I
tried the suggestions you both made. They both worked on screen ... up until
I go to print. That is, the doc remains a 7 page doc with all the proper
formatting until I click page setup. (We use a network Xerox phaser 8400
here, which before instructions to print requires a separate page setup).
Page set up sees the document as 'US letter' size. I changed it to A4 (back
to the original size). At that point the pages madly start multiplying. The
print button is greyed out or not responding. The force quit box says Word
(is not responding). So printing is still impossible. Any additional
suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

There are no tables in the doc, no graphics, no footers, no headers, no
section breaks. When I copied and pasted the doc into a new doc (without the
final para marker) the endnote numbering changed to roman numerals. I changed
it back to cardinal numbers and everything remained relatively stable without
an increase of pages. Only on page setup did it run wild. Hope this bckgd
helps for a new diagnosis. Thanks in advance for your time and help. Much
appreciated.

 

[CyberTaz]

Thanks for the add'l. info - based on that I suspect 2 other possibilities
right off the bat:

1- Is Track Changes turned ON in the doc? If so, be sure to turn it OFF &
Accept/Reject *all* changes. If that feature has been used all modifications
ever made are retained in the doc until you do. That can cause some serious
pagination issues - although I've never witnessed one anywhere near that
severe.

2- There may be a conflict with the printer driver. You might want to see if
there is an update available. If you are using the most current it might not
hurt to reinstall it - drivers have been known to go sour. Perhaps Xerox
support may have some additional insight on the issue.

I have a feeling that some of the other participants in the ng may be
lurking about, so perhaps some additional suggestions will be posted.

 

[christophermark]

Additoinal update. I've located the point that the corruption begins, on page
5. Copying and pasting everything above that point produces a good printed
doc. Now, how do I deal with the other two and half pages, pray tell? Thanks
in advance for any guidance.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Did you already try the Save as Webpage method at the link Beth gave?
That's a rather more ferocious way of getting rid of corruption, as it
forces Word to rebuild the entire document from scratch when you resave it
as a Word doc. (Read the instructions, steps and order matter)

You may have missed that, as much of the discussion was about the copy and
paste method.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

I'm also thinking that maybe the corruption is in the next paragraph mark
after that place on page 5. Try this:

Copy & paste everything up to that point and be sure it still prints
properly.

Skip the next paragraph altogether (for the time being).

Copy and paste everything else (after the skipped paragraph and minus the
very last paragraph mark in the doc) into another blank doc and see if that
prints properly.

If it does, RETYPE the skipped paragraph into the first doc and check again.

Finally copy and paste everything from the second doc into the first and you
*should* have a non-corrupt, working document (fingers crossed!).

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
My Site: <http://www.bethrosengard.com>

 

[christophermark]

Re: last 3 posts from Daiya, Beth and Bob
I did try the Save as Webpage method, but will try again now that you urge
us to give this special attention (haven't done the second try yet).
Track changes is off. I just realized, however, that the track changes tool
bar was showing. Does that matter even it is off?
I downloaded and reinstalled the driver for the printer.
Most of the time I focused on Beth's second scenario. I did it twice: last
night when the mind was not sharpest; and again this morning.
1. Copy & paste first five pages, minus last para mark. Continues to print
without hitch. (When I did it this morning I went to "My Templates" first and
changed Normal.dot to Normal1.dot with Word closed, and then restarted Word
as per instructions for "How can I fix a corrupt Template'.
2. Copy & paste everything else, missing out the first paragraph, and minus
the last para mark into a separate doc. Prints OK, no problems.
3. Retype skipped para into first doc and print. Prints OK
4. Copy & paste everything from second doc into first. No joy. Corruption
reoccurs. Pages start to multiply. Hit Command + Z. Everything from 2nd doc
disappears, and with it the corruption. I am back to my printable 5 pages.

Of course, at this point it makes sense to retype the remaining two pages
into the first doc. My concern however, is that even if this doc prints, as I
expect it will, the corruption remains since I am one of those uninitiated
who whenever the dialogue 'Normal.dot has changed. Do you want to save the
changes?' always hit 'yes', plus I have always ticked "Automatically update"
in the styles modification dialogue. After trying the web page option once
more, not sure if there are any options left. Reinstalling Word would not
affect the already corrupted docs, would it, and they, I expect, will only
reinfect the newly installed Word, no?

This has been a steep learning curve. But I am grateful. It is about the
carpenter learning how to better use his tools rather than blaming them. I am
immensley grateful for all your help. The manifest sense of community on the
Web is just amaizing!

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Christopher:

Relax This particular bug is usually ONE SINGLE PARAGRAPH in the
document that has gotten corrupted. It's not the template If it were
the template, every new document you create would do this...

If you follow Beth's method of binary search (divide by half, then by half,
then by half, then by half....) you will soon find out which paragraph it
is.

Chances are you will only have to re-type one paragraph.

It's often quicker to save the offending page(s) in a Format of Text Only.
It is important to then CLOSE and re-open the text version, then re-format
it.

If you leave the formatted version on the screen, you leave the corruption
in memory. Text Only format can't store the properties that cause this bug.

Cheers

Re: last 3 posts from Daiya, Beth and Bob
I did try the Save as Webpage method, but will try again now that you urge
us to give this special attention (haven't done the second try yet).
Track changes is off. I just realized, however, that the track changes tool
bar was showing. Does that matter even it is off?
I downloaded and reinstalled the driver for the printer.
Most of the time I focused on Beth's second scenario. I did it twice: last
night when the mind was not sharpest; and again this morning.
1. Copy & paste first five pages, minus last para mark. Continues to print
without hitch. (When I did it this morning I went to "My Templates" first and
changed Normal.dot to Normal1.dot with Word closed, and then restarted Word
as per instructions for "How can I fix a corrupt Template'.
2. Copy & paste everything else, missing out the first paragraph, and minus
the last para mark into a separate doc. Prints OK, no problems.
3. Retype skipped para into first doc and print. Prints OK
4. Copy & paste everything from second doc into first. No joy. Corruption
reoccurs. Pages start to multiply. Hit Command + Z. Everything from 2nd doc
disappears, and with it the corruption. I am back to my printable 5 pages.

Of course, at this point it makes sense to retype the remaining two pages
into the first doc. My concern however, is that even if this doc prints, as I
expect it will, the corruption remains since I am one of those uninitiated
who whenever the dialogue 'Normal.dot has changed. Do you want to save the
changes?' always hit 'yes', plus I have always ticked "Automatically update"
in the styles modification dialogue. After trying the web page option once
more, not sure if there are any options left. Reinstalling Word would not
affect the already corrupted docs, would it, and they, I expect, will only
reinfect the newly installed Word, no?

This has been a steep learning curve. But I am grateful. It is about the
carpenter learning how to better use his tools rather than blaming them. I am
immensley grateful for all your help. The manifest sense of community on the
Web is just amaizing!

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[christophermark]

Thanks, John. Nothing like a confident "relax..." to make one sit back and
enjoy the flight better.

OK, thanks to all of you, I have a 7 pg doc that I can hand in to the
editor, minus half the endnotes, but that will come later. The prob must be
in the endnotes, or rather in the para mark after one of them. Converting to
text helped. Somehow the endnotes didn't take to that stripping... unless of
course its not the endnotes but elsewhere. The page multiplication started
again after pasting one in. Anyway with a little help from 'undo' i was back
to a printable doc. I just wanted to get that message in before the sun went
down. Didn't want to leave you waiting for closure. Thanks again for you
help. Interesting to know that this is not a one off problem.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Christopher -

Although you're apparently getting back to a "tolerable" state, I just
wanted to make sure one point was clear:

I just realized, however, that the track changes tool
bar was showing. Does that matter even it is off?

Displaying the Reviewing Toolbar (or not) neither activates nor deactivates
Track Changes. There is a button on it to turn Track Changes on/off, but
turning it OFF simply means that *further* changes will not be tracked - it
*doesn't* mean that the changes made prior to turning it OFF aren't still
contained in the doc. IOW, Turning the feature OFF doesn't purge the doc of
what has already been tracked. Changes already tracked must be either
accepted or rejected before the slate is wiped clean. You can use the
'Display' list at the left end of the bar to see whether tracked changes are
still retained in the doc.

All this is more for future reference than anything else, as the tracked
changes won't be retained through the Save As procedures - that's why they
[usually] help in these problem situations

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

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Christopher:

Oh Hell, was I not reading carefully enough?? If I had realised there were
end notes in the document that's the first place I would have told you to
look

You're right, Plain Text format does not store Endnotes: end notes are
actually an overlaid "property" of a paragraph. If you have been using the
EndNote application to create them, it is COMMON to have problems, because
EndNote jams thousands of characters of citation into a data store than was
never designed to hold more than a few hundred bytes.

As you have discovered, if you "copy" a bad EndNote, you copy the problem
right back into the clean document. You need to RE-CREATE the end notes.

Hope this helps

Thanks, John. Nothing like a confident "relax..." to make one sit back and
enjoy the flight better.

OK, thanks to all of you, I have a 7 pg doc that I can hand in to the
editor, minus half the endnotes, but that will come later. The prob must be
in the endnotes, or rather in the para mark after one of them. Converting to
text helped. Somehow the endnotes didn't take to that stripping... unless of
course its not the endnotes but elsewhere. The page multiplication started
again after pasting one in. Anyway with a little help from 'undo' i was back
to a printable doc. I just wanted to get that message in before the sun went
down. Didn't want to leave you waiting for closure. Thanks again for you
help. Interesting to know that this is not a one off problem.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

John, EndNote doesn't create endnotes. The endnote reference is created by
Word. All the information that EndNote jams in is held in a field in the
endnote text (which I imagine was designed to allow for quite a lot of text,
or certainly should have been, seems to handle it okay). Is that still a
problem?

I'm unclear on how the "overlaid property of a paragraph" works--I imagined
everything was stored in the endnote reference number? And I always have
several per paragraph.

Daiya

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

John, EndNote doesn't create endnotes. The endnote reference is created by
Word. All the information that EndNote jams in is held in a field in the
endnote text (which I imagine was designed to allow for quite a lot of text,
or certainly should have been, seems to handle it okay). Is that still a
problem?

That appears to be true after EndNote formatting, but before you perform
this operation the fields are plain regular text. The add-in will scan
the document looking for tags. Once they are all found, it will replace
them with these weird EndNote fields.
(though CWYW will in practice almost immediately replace the text-only
tags with fields).

I'm unclear on how the "overlaid property of a paragraph" works--I imagined
everything was stored in the endnote reference number? And I always have
several per paragraph.

Only in Field mode/after formatting,

To avoid all these problems, I never use CWYW and formatting is the last
thing I do. I can insert references, move them around, etc and never get
corruption. The tags (between curly quotes in my case) remain in plain
regular text.

Corentin

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Daiya:

Well, you're quite correct the way you say it

In a Word document, endnotes and footnotes are each in a separate text story
within the document object model. Each is also available in a separate
collection, but that's not germane to this argument.

A paragraph with an endnote in it contains a binary pointer that references
the offset of the range in the Endnotes or Footnotes story that contains the
applicable endnote.

This pointer is expanded into the text when the cross-references are
resolved at pagination time. Unless the structure of the document is
totally clean at that point, Word seems to corrupt the paragraph properties
when this happens. It then seems unable to compute the size of the
paragraph (which seems to get set to "infinite") which seems to be what
leads to the 'paginate forever' bug.

I suspect that the mechanism was only ever designed to contain a few hundred
characters, and that Word loses the plot trying to merge the note text into
the main text, particularly if tracked changes are present at the location.

A document containing lots of endnotes or footnotes will suffer lots of
corrupt paragraphs. It's not inevitable. Careful use of EndNote and
careful and precise use of selection when editing will enable skilled users
to have documents in which half the text is footnotes without any
corruption.

Careless editing of a footnote or endnote, or not following EndNote's
instructions when porting from one version of Word to the other, will break
them every time.

The endnote reference number doesn't actually store anything: it's like a
paragraph mark: it's an icon that acts as a placeholder for a pointer that
tells Word where the text really is.

There were many good reasons for designing Word that way, but it made the
binary .doc structure fragile and excessively fragile. I hope the tag-based
structure in Office 12 will prove a lot more robust. It better: that's why
they're doing it

Cheers

John, EndNote doesn't create endnotes. The endnote reference is created by
Word. All the information that EndNote jams in is held in a field in the
endnote text (which I imagine was designed to allow for quite a lot of text,
or certainly should have been, seems to handle it okay). Is that still a
problem?

I'm unclear on how the "overlaid property of a paragraph" works--I imagined
everything was stored in the endnote reference number? And I always have
several per paragraph.

Daiya

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[christophermark]

Hi, I'm back. Trying to relax...

You have answered a number of my questions about endnotes while I was away.
(Incidentally I use Word's endnote provision, rather than EndNote: should I
be using the latter?) When I thought I had a stable doc last Thursday night,
I worked away at polishing and guess what? Worse than ever! Nevertheless,
the editor saw the printed version of the article and loved it. Now we got to
get what amounts to a still corrupt doc into Adobe InDesign CS for printing.
Deadline has passed but been pushed forward a week, waiting for this
misbehaving article. Can you help? I have tried just about everything except
Txt formatting. Saved as Web twice or three times. Even gone to a non-corrupt
doc, copied what I considered to be a safe para mark and used it to replace
all the para marks in the corrupt doc. That worked; until I started 'tidying
up'. Infinite pagination! What troubles me is that I expect my 'Styles'
formatting are corrupt. A number of them, if I try deleting them, offer only
a 'greyed out' delete, disallowing a delete (so that I can format them anew).
I am as confident as you, that Office 12 will have the answer, but
unfortunately, though I've googled on the net, I can't find a Time Machine,
and still stuck with Office 2004 for Mac.

Thanks in advance for all your time, consideration and expertise.
--
christopher

Hi Daiya:

Well, you're quite correct the way you say it

In a Word document, endnotes and footnotes are each in a separate text story
within the document object model. Each is also available in a separate
collection, but that's not germane to this argument.

A paragraph with an endnote in it contains a binary pointer that references
the offset of the range in the Endnotes or Footnotes story that contains the
applicable endnote.

This pointer is expanded into the text when the cross-references are
resolved at pagination time. Unless the structure of the document is
totally clean at that point, Word seems to corrupt the paragraph properties
when this happens. It then seems unable to compute the size of the
paragraph (which seems to get set to "infinite") which seems to be what
leads to the 'paginate forever' bug.

I suspect that the mechanism was only ever designed to contain a few hundred
characters, and that Word loses the plot trying to merge the note text into
the main text, particularly if tracked changes are present at the location.

A document containing lots of endnotes or footnotes will suffer lots of
corrupt paragraphs. It's not inevitable. Careful use of EndNote and
careful and precise use of selection when editing will enable skilled users
to have documents in which half the text is footnotes without any
corruption.

Careless editing of a footnote or endnote, or not following EndNote's
instructions when porting from one version of Word to the other, will break
them every time.

The endnote reference number doesn't actually store anything: it's like a
paragraph mark: it's an icon that acts as a placeholder for a pointer that
tells Word where the text really is.

There were many good reasons for designing Word that way, but it made the
binary .doc structure fragile and excessively fragile. I hope the tag-based
structure in Office 12 will prove a lot more robust. It better: that's why
they're doing it

Cheers

John, EndNote doesn't create endnotes. The endnote reference is created by
Word. All the information that EndNote jams in is held in a field in the
endnote text (which I imagine was designed to allow for quite a lot of text,
or certainly should have been, seems to handle it okay). Is that still a
problem?

I'm unclear on how the "overlaid property of a paragraph" works--I imagined
everything was stored in the endnote reference number? And I always have
several per paragraph.

Daiya

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Sorry slow response, I needed to set aside some time to concentrate on this.

Okay, I get it. So EndNote just tends to exacerbate circumstances that
would stress Word anyhow--Word could be equally stressed with with plaintext
footnotes, if there were enough of them and they were long enough?

Daiya

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Christopher:

Sorry: we'll have to go for the "Big Fix" here...

1) Save the document as a Web Page.

Make sure you check the option to "Save entire file to HTML"

2) Close the document and Word

3) Re-open the HTML version.

4) Re-save as a Document.

Sorry: I think you will lose your end notes. Some flavours of Word XML
support endnotes, but I am not sure if Word 2004's does.

Re-insert your end notes BY TYPING.

If you copy one, you get to start again from Step 1...

(You "can" save all your end notes out to a .TXT file. That way you
preserve the text (only). Pasting them back in from SimpleText is fine.
The problem we have here is that your document style table is badly
corrupted. Forcing Word to re-express it as a web page (i.e. In XML...)
will force it to clean up the file.

It is possible that Word will crash when trying to save as a web page. If
that happens, try the following:

A) Quit Word

B) Delete your Normal template

C) Restart word and exit it again, saying "Yes" to any prompts to save
(saves a new clean Normal)

D) Create a new blank document and save under a new file name

E) CAREFULLY select all EXCEPT the very last paragraph mark in the bad
document

F) Copy

G) In the new document, Paste

H) Save

That should clean it up sufficiently to enable you to perform the first
procedure. Sorry: The second procedure is insufficient on its own. It
will clean up the corrupted style table, but it won't fix the bad paragraphs
that are causing that: you'll need to do both to get that document clean.

Good luck!!

Hope this helps

Hi, I'm back. Trying to relax...

You have answered a number of my questions about endnotes while I was away.
(Incidentally I use Word's endnote provision, rather than EndNote: should I
be using the latter?) When I thought I had a stable doc last Thursday night,
I worked away at polishing and guess what? Worse than ever! Nevertheless,
the editor saw the printed version of the article and loved it. Now we got to
get what amounts to a still corrupt doc into Adobe InDesign CS for printing.
Deadline has passed but been pushed forward a week, waiting for this
misbehaving article. Can you help? I have tried just about everything except
Txt formatting. Saved as Web twice or three times. Even gone to a non-corrupt
doc, copied what I considered to be a safe para mark and used it to replace
all the para marks in the corrupt doc. That worked; until I started 'tidying
up'. Infinite pagination! What troubles me is that I expect my 'Styles'
formatting are corrupt. A number of them, if I try deleting them, offer only
a 'greyed out' delete, disallowing a delete (so that I can format them anew).
I am as confident as you, that Office 12 will have the answer, but
unfortunately, though I've googled on the net, I can't find a Time Machine,
and still stuck with Office 2004 for Mac.

Thanks in advance for all your time, consideration and expertise.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[christophermark]

A Novel Solution:

Thanks again for all your good help and counsel. I cannot overemphasize how
grateful I am for all the support I got during these trying times.

Sorry too it has taken a few days to post this; however I think it is worth
mentioning in case others find themselves in a similar bind. In the end
Microsoft toolbar inspired a clue: after 'font', 'format', 'table', etc and
before 'help' it has 'Work'. This reminded me that I had Mac's own iWork
software on my computer, which is interactive with Word. Importing the
document into 'Pages' and then exporting it out again into 'Word' (because
the Layout editor doesn't have 'Pages') I got a completly reformatted
document, precisely the one I was hoping to get by Saving as a Web Page, but
didn't, presumably because of the endnotes. This new doc printed without a
hitch and imported into Adobe InDesign without a hiccup. The only catch was
that 'Pages' doesn't do endnotes. All endnotes came out as footnotes. So of
course when exporting back to Word I got footnotes. Now here is the
punchline: when importing into InDesign, the footnotes automatically came out
as endnotes, just as we wanted them. However, when I tried within in 'Word'
to convert footnotes to endnotes, I got a corrupted doc with infinite
pagination again. Go figure. For those who understand the binary constructs
going on in the background, this is probably as straightforward as
understanding a newspaper. For those of us who live in glass houses, however,
it is miraculous as coal changing into a diamond.

Anyway, if you have iWork ('Pages') on a Mac and ever come up with a corrupt
doc in Word, and nothing else works, something in the above might be your
answer. Hope so.

christopher