Document causes Word to freeze

[Ed Kimball]

I have one document, sent to me by a Windows user, that causes Mac Word 2004
to freeze every time I open it. In Activity Monitor, Word shows ~99% usage
and "not responding". I must Force Quit to stop the "beach ball."

Other documents (including several from the same user) work fine. Any ideas
on what I should try on my Mac or she should try on Windows?

Here's my configuration:
MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo
OS X 10.5.6
Office 2004 latest update [11.5.3 (081112)]

 

[Ed Kimball]

I have one document, sent to me by a Windows user, that causes Mac Word 2004
to freeze every time I open it. In Activity Monitor, Word shows ~99% usage
and "not responding". I must Force Quit to stop the "beach ball."

Other documents (including several from the same user) work fine. Any ideas
on what I should try on my Mac or she should try on Windows?

Here's my configuration:
MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo
OS X 10.5.6
Office 2004 latest update [11.5.3 (081112)]

As a solution, I asked the user to send me the document as an RTF file, and
that seemed to work.

 

[MC]

I have one document, sent to me by a Windows user, that causes Mac Word 2004
to freeze every time I open it. In Activity Monitor, Word shows ~99% usage
and "not responding". I must Force Quit to stop the "beach ball."

Other documents (including several from the same user) work fine. Any ideas
on what I should try on my Mac or she should try on Windows?

Here's my configuration:
MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo
OS X 10.5.6
Office 2004 latest update [11.5.3 (081112)]

Does this happen with other docs she sends you?

If not, I'd suggest (as a first step) that she saves it as an .rtf doc
and sends that instead.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Ed -

Based on your description & the addendum in your second message I'd say the
original document is corrupt or contains something which is [such as a
corrupt table, overworked change tracking, pooched graphic, etc.]. It's also
possible that the original simply has some type of content that isn't
recognizable on a Mac.

As long as the RTF copy is satisfactory you should be OK with it.
Unfortunately you can't even use the options for uncorrupting the file
unless you can open it first. However, if you have a problem opening it the
odds are that she'll have the same problem with her copy sooner or later, so
you might want to put her wise so she can correct it before it gets worse.
The methods for uncorrupting a document are available here:

http://word.mvps.org/faqs/apperrors/corruptdoc.htm

If you have a similar issue in the future you can also use the Open dialog
but select "Recover Text from Any File" in the Enable list at the bottom of
the dialog window. You'll lose all formatting, graphics, etc. but at least
you may be able to get the text content into a usable new file.

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

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Ed:

That's almost certainly the result of the user "adjusting" numbered or
bulleted lists in their document.

It is very possible, particularly in Word 2007, to construct numbered lists
with circular or blind references.

These will also hang Word 2007 if they get it wrong badly enough

One of the advertised "cures" is to save the document out to RTF, forcing
Word to straighten out the internal lists in the document.

Hope this helps

I have one document, sent to me by a Windows user, that causes Mac Word 2004
to freeze every time I open it. In Activity Monitor, Word shows ~99% usage
and "not responding". I must Force Quit to stop the "beach ball."

Other documents (including several from the same user) work fine. Any ideas
on what I should try on my Mac or she should try on Windows?

Here's my configuration:
MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo
OS X 10.5.6
Office 2004 latest update [11.5.3 (081112)]

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John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]