Equation Editor problems

[EStarr]

I'm running Mac OS 10.4.5 and Word 11.2, newly installed on an iBook
G4. When I first tried to insert an equation in a Word document,
Equation Editor started to open and then gave me the error message
"Equation Editor has encountered a problem and needs to close." Here
are things I tried:

- reinstall EE from disk
- reinstall all of Office from disk
- dump EE preferences
- run Repair Disk Utilities
- upgrade Office
- redo some of the above in case order matters (but I haven't tried
every possible order)

There has been some progress: now I can actually type an equation in
the EE window, but when I try closing the window (which inserts the
equation in the Word document), I get that same error message and the
equation is not inserted in the document.

Anyone else run into this problem? Any suggestions?

Thanks,

EStarr

 

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

The one thing you seem to have missed is "Remove Office"

That's an application you need to run. It's in the Additional Tools folder
of your Microsoft Office application folder.

I wish I had an automatic button that would type the following:

"Everyone: you need to understand that "re-installing" Office has no effect
(it does nothing) unless you run Remove Office first.

That's because problems with office are not caused by damage to the Office
program files, they're caused by wrong information in the settings files
(the .plist files) which are not part of "Office". The settings files are
files that notionally you (the user) create.

They do not exist on the CD. Settings files are generated when each of the
Office Applications first runs.

Unless you run the Remove Office application, they remain on the disk, they
are not re-created, and they continue to contain the bad values that are
causing the problems."

Cheers

I'm running Mac OS 10.4.5 and Word 11.2, newly installed on an iBook
G4. When I first tried to insert an equation in a Word document,
Equation Editor started to open and then gave me the error message
"Equation Editor has encountered a problem and needs to close." Here
are things I tried:

- reinstall EE from disk
- reinstall all of Office from disk
- dump EE preferences
- run Repair Disk Utilities
- upgrade Office
- redo some of the above in case order matters (but I haven't tried
every possible order)

There has been some progress: now I can actually type an equation in
the EE window, but when I try closing the window (which inserts the
equation in the Word document), I get that same error message and the
equation is not inserted in the document.

Anyone else run into this problem? Any suggestions?

Thanks,

EStarr

--

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

 

[EStarr]

Thanks for suggesting Remove Office -- I'm glad to know about it.
Unfortunately, it didn't solve my problem. My current theory is that
there is a bug that makes OS 10.4.5 (and 10.4.6) incompatible with
Equation Editor, as I've been able to reproduce the problem on other
computers with those operating systems and not on computers with
earlier operating systems.

Sigh.

For the moment I'm using the 30-day free trial of MathType, which does
seem to work on my computer. When the free trial expires, MathType
turns into MathType Lite, and I'll see if that has what I need.

 

[Michel Bintener]

I'm running Word 2004 (11.2.3) under OS X 10.4.6, and I can insert equations
as expected, so I'd say this is not a bug. You stated that you are using
Word 11.2; is Word completely up-to-date (11.2.3)? Are the other computers
you mention connected via a network, or do they have a similar setup?

One area that might be worth investigating is the possibility of a font
problem; if you disable some fonts which Equation Editor needs, it can act
quite strangely, it can for instance refuse to launch and/or quit, which
seems to have happened a number of times in your case. That would not
explain how you are now able to create an equation, but I guess it's worth a
try. If you don't feel like investigating, MathType will be just fine.

Thanks for suggesting Remove Office -- I'm glad to know about it.
Unfortunately, it didn't solve my problem. My current theory is that
there is a bug that makes OS 10.4.5 (and 10.4.6) incompatible with
Equation Editor, as I've been able to reproduce the problem on other
computers with those operating systems and not on computers with
earlier operating systems.

Sigh.

For the moment I'm using the 30-day free trial of MathType, which does
seem to work on my computer. When the free trial expires, MathType
turns into MathType Lite, and I'll see if that has what I need.

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Word & Entourage)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

For the moment I'm using the 30-day free trial of MathType, which does
seem to work on my computer. When the free trial expires, MathType
turns into MathType Lite, and I'll see if that has what I need.

Equation Editor is essentially a cut-down version of MathType, made by the
same people, and as far as I know, MT Lite is actually a little better than
Equation Editor--similar functionality, but the equations should be editable
cross-platform. So yes, MT Lite should be fine.

 

[masahiko1970]

Hi,

When I use Word 2004 in combination with Equation Editor for Mac to
create documents, and later, when I read this documents under Word for
Windows, the equations appear with different signs.

Somebody knows about this problem and how to fix it?.

Thanks a lot for help.

-Omar