Cannot Open Any Files in Excel

D

darryl

I worked on some Excel spreadsheets in the morning and do not recall
having any problems. If I recall correctly, I closed the files as normal
and probably quit Excel straight after.

At around this time I wanted to back up my HD to an external but for
reasons best known to deities I selected synchronize instead. I can only
think this must be the cause of my problems.

Later in the day I went to open an Excel file but, when Excel went to
look for the file it reported a dialog box that said:
"Collectors.xls could not be found"
It told me more about how I must have moved it or renamed it but none of
this occurred.

When it became obvious that I could not open any .xls file I started to
worry. I found I could open .xls file using Appleworks after changing
the Open with command in Get Info and also from the Appleworks
File->Open menu. So there was nothing wrong with the data. I could also
open them with FileMaker Pro.

I uninstalled Microsoft Office 2004 and reinstalled the standard
install. Then I restarted and installed the latest Office 2004 update
(v11.2.3). I have repeated this procedure at least four times.

If I log out and log in as a different user then both Excel and Word are
fine using the new account. I can open and close documents as normal.

However, back in my normal account, I still could not open any .xls
documents by opening from the Excel file menu, dragging a file onto the
Excel icon in the Dock or dragging onto the application icon. The
situation is the same for every .xls file I tried.

When I try to open a new document or a template I received a different
dialog box that says:
"Microsoft Excel cannot open or save any more documents because there is
not enough available memory or disk space"

There is also a problem in Word that indicates that the normal.dot file
is missing so I assume that whatever I have done has affected Word and
Excel. I cannot save files in Word either.

It is as if a MS Office directory based on my account name is corrupted.

I have run Disk Utility several times to repair any damaged permissions
(although none reported) and also run Applejack but neither fixed my
problems.

I have progressively removed preferences to the stage that all
preferences are removed to a folder on the desktop. I also removed the
Microsoft User Data folder from my ~/Documents folder.

I am at the stage of reinstalling the Mac OS on the internal HD or, if
that fails, erasing the whole internal HD and starting from scratch.
These are not my preferred courses of action because of the number of
third-party applications I have installed but I am at my wits' end.

My setup: iMac G5 / Mac OS X 10.4.6 / 1.5 Gb RAM / 197 Gb HD space
available

Any assistance appreciated.

regards,
Darryl
 
J

Jim Gordon

Hi Darryl,

I would give Disk Utility another go at the drive, but this time use the
Verify Disk feature.

If all is well then use the Uninstaller for Office to completely remove
office. Dragging office to the trash and emptying the trash isn't good
enough.

Then re-install office, after which you should rebuild file permissions
with disk utility again.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
 

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