Copying Tables from Word 2 Word crashes Word. EVERY FREAKING TIME

[Word is the Devil.]

Once again, one of these simple things that should be no problem, but Word
finds a way to make it difficult...

All I'm trying to do is copy a table - not even a big one - from one Word
doc to another. Every single time I paste, without fail, Word crashes. I
tried a detect and repair, but the problem remains. Yes, I can recreate
these tables because they're not that big, but I shouldn't have to. Can
anyone explain this or offer a solution (other than a sledgehammer)?

Oh, and does anyone else think the dropdown list of discussion groups should
be alphabetized? How am I supposed to find my topic in a mile long list when
there's no particular order?

 

[Michel Bintener]

"Detect and repair"? Are you using a Windows version of Word? This newsgroup
is about Word for Macintosh, just for future reference.

As far as your table problem is concerned: it might be that it has become
corrupted, which is why it causes Word to crash. To remove the corruption,
select the table, then go to Table>Convert>Convert Table to Text. Choose to
separate the text with tabs, and you should have a tab-delimited, text-only
version of the table. Now select this text, then go to Table>Convert>Convert
Text to Table. Make sure that "Separate text at tabs" is selected, then hit
OK, and you should have your table back again, hopefully without corruption.
See if you can paste that one into the other Word document. Alternatively,
you could copy the tab-delimited text into the other document and
reconstruct the table in there.

Hopefully, you've found this more useful than a sledgehammer. Oh, and re the
discussion groups: it depends on how you're viewing them. If you are using a
newsreader, you can normally arrange them any way you want. If you want to
use a web-based interface, I'd recommend using the Google newsgroups, as
they seem to be less prone to trouble than the interface featured on the
Microsoft website. And you should be able to find your posts (and this
reply) by typing your name in a search field. Believe me, "Word is the
Devil" is a rather unusual name; I often wonder what some parents are
thinking when they come up with such names for their children...

Michel

 

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

{Sigh}

Once again, a user has hacked and chopped their document so that now its
internal structure is so messed up that Word cannot recognise the resulting
binary salad as valid data

Generally when you get a document as badly damaged as that, the only sure
way to cure it is to save it as a Web Page, then open the web page and save
it back as a document. Try that: you may get away with it, but if you have
damaged it as badly as I think you have, Word will crash during the save
because you have made such a mess that it can't read your document properly.

In which case, you can try the following process. It "might" work. You
will at least get some data back...

1) Select that table

2) Table>Convert>Table to Text. Don't move your selection.

3) Table>Convert>Text to Table

That will remove the mess caused by careless editing and rewrite the table
into a regular structure of computer code that Word can read.

It "should" be OK after that. But if you've really hacked it around, the
damage will have spread to the paragraph container either side of the table.
To correct this:

1) Create a paragraph somewhere in the document at least two paragraphs
away from the paragraph immediately below the table. Type at least five
characters of text into this paragraph.

2) Copy this new paragraph.

3) Paste it in INTO the paragraph immediately following the damaged table.

4) Paste again, into the paragraph immediately above the damaged table.

5) Carefully delete the remains of the two damaged paragraphs. Save before
you do this, you may get a crash.

If the above can't complete, then you will need to save your document out as
Text Only, then completely reformat it, rebuilding all of the tables.

The key problem is that you are not being careful with your selection
positioning when you are working. If you get things inside things and
straddling other things, eventually the internal structure of the file will
exceed the complexity limits of Word. That's what produces the problem.

Key operational disciplines to avoid this are:

1) Learn about Tracked Changes. Particularly, how to turn it OFF, and make
sure you turn off the tracking of changes, not just the display of tracked
changes, when you don't need it.

2) Learn to operate with your Show/Hide turned ON. You can't edit
precisely if you can't see what you are doing.

3) Do all formatting with Styles. Direct Formatting makes the problem
occur sooner and harder to fix.

4) Stop fighting Word. It's trying to help.

That last one is the key. I'm as guilty of it as anyone here: I
"personalise" Word and get into mental fights with it. Well, OK, you can do
that too if you want to. Every time you do, you will lose. Eventually, you
will get tired of that

Word is a tool. The "tradesman" is you. If you don't like what happens,
have a word with the tradesman

Cheers

Once again, one of these simple things that should be no problem, but Word
finds a way to make it difficult...

All I'm trying to do is copy a table - not even a big one - from one Word
doc to another. Every single time I paste, without fail, Word crashes. I
tried a detect and repair, but the problem remains. Yes, I can recreate
these tables because they're not that big, but I shouldn't have to. Can
anyone explain this or offer a solution (other than a sledgehammer)?

Oh, and does anyone else think the dropdown list of discussion groups should
be alphabetized? How am I supposed to find my topic in a mile long list when
there's no particular order?

--

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. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410