Bullets and Number always causes crash (Mac OS X)

[John Ourant]

Every time I select Bullets and Numbering, Word crashes. It doesn't
matter whether I try to get there from the Palette, Menu, or from
within Styles. I can open a document with bullets or numbering on it
and add more lines to the end of a list. But if I try to set some text
to a bullet style, it also crashes. No problems with anything else in
Word, including symbol insert.

Mac OX 10.3.3. Word X with the latest updates (10.1.5). I've already
tried getting rid of Office and reinstalling it from scratch.

I see there are some old posts with a similar problem, but nothing for
v.X. Help!

-- John

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Hi John,

If you didn't run the Remove Office tool (on the Value Pack) before
reinstalling, it's highly unlikely to fix anything. However, before doing
that again, here are a few things to try...

Four files that have a tendency to corrupt:

The Normal template (in Apps/Office/Templates)
The Prefs or Settings file (in ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft (the one in
your user account))
The Word Font cache
The Carbon Registration Database

With Word quit, trash or rename, all will be automatically recreated when
Word launches again. For the Normal template and the Prefs file, you want
to RENAME rather than trash them, as they hold customizations. If the
problem persists with a new Prefs file, you can just delete the new one and
rename the old one back to the standard name. With Normal, even if the
problem stops and Normal appears to have caused it, you can copy many of
your old customizations into the new Normal via the Organizer in Word. The
Font cache and Carbon Registration Database can just be deleted.

Best to test these one by one to locate the source of the problem.

Follow this link for general troubleshooting techniques:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm

See here to make sure you are fully updated:
http://www.mcgimpsey.com/macoffice/office/vxversions.html

DM

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word]]

Hi John:

V.X is exactly the same as Word 98 and Word 2001 in this respect.

That crash is caused by a corrupt list template (Bullets and Numbering are
the same thing internally, and their formatting definition is stored in an
internal data structure called a List Template).

The corruption is in the document that caused the crash. It may also be in
your Normal template. If the problem affects even documents created today,
it's in your Normal template. Quit Word and re-name your Normal template.
Word will create a new one when it restarts and future documents will be OK.

You now need to fix any existing documents with the problem. Go through
each document and carefully copy everything except the last paragraph mark
into a fresh new document, and save it under a new file name. Turn on the
Show/Hide button to reveal paragraph marks so that you can see what you are
doing. If you copy the last paragraph mark, you will copy the problem.

You will find that the bullets and numbering in bad documents fixed this way
may be peculiar. In Format>Bullets and Numbering, run through the samples
and click RESET on each of the offered styles to repair the defaults.

Use Format>Style... To set up your bulleted and numbered styles correctly if
needed. The process is well described on Shauna Kelly's website: search the
web for it.

Re-installing Office has no effect at all unless you first run the Remove
Office utility from the Office CD. A normal install does not replace the
files that store the problems because they already exist.

Hope this helps


This responds to article <[email protected]>,

Every time I select Bullets and Numbering, Word crashes. It doesn't
matter whether I try to get there from the Palette, Menu, or from
within Styles. I can open a document with bullets or numbering on it
and add more lines to the end of a list. But if I try to set some text
to a bullet style, it also crashes. No problems with anything else in
Word, including symbol insert.

Mac OX 10.3.3. Word X with the latest updates (10.1.5). I've already
tried getting rid of Office and reinstalling it from scratch.

I see there are some old posts with a similar problem, but nothing for
v.X. Help!

-- John

--

Please respond only to the newsgroup to preserve the thread.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[John Ourant]

The Remove Office tool did the trick. According to the Remove Office
Log, the only thing it got rid of that I hadn't manually deleted was
the stuff in the OS 9 System Folder: PPC Registration Database, MS
Font Embed Library (PPC), and some fonts. That seems odd (assuming the
log file really listed everything), but at least Word works again.

Thanks!
-- John

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Glad I could help, and thanks for the info.
DM

The Remove Office tool did the trick. According to the Remove Office
Log, the only thing it got rid of that I hadn't manually deleted was
the stuff in the OS 9 System Folder: PPC Registration Database, MS
Font Embed Library (PPC), and some fonts. That seems odd (assuming the
log file really listed everything), but at least Word works again.

Thanks!
-- John