excessive memory swapping with Word.X & Endnote ?

[Ronald Florence]

Unpredictably and unrepeatable, Word.X and/or Endnote-7 will
occasionally get into a sick loop that causes the machine (either a
PowerMac-dual-867 or a PowerBook-17-1.5gz, each with 1gb of ram and
MacOS 10.3.5) to heavily swap. After the spinning beachball and
temporary unresponsiveness end, top shows elevated pageouts and there
are extra swap files in /var/vm.

The problem is intermittent. I cannot precisely peg what actions cause
the loop. Double-clicking on an item in an Endnote bibliography to edit
the entry sometimes does it, but only sometimes. I've seen Word.X
occasionally do it from nothing more provocative than deleting a chunk
of text.

Any idea what might be awry? Since no other programs on these machines
cause the problem (except maybe Photoshop in the midst of too many large
scans), I suspect memory leaks or sloppy coding in Word and/or Endnote.
Is Word 2004 (to which I cannot update until Endnote 8 is available)
any more reliable and better-behaved? Thanks,

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur [MVP]]

Hi,

Unpredictably and unrepeatable, Word.X and/or Endnote-7 will
occasionally get into a sick loop that causes the machine (either a
PowerMac-dual-867 or a PowerBook-17-1.5gz, each with 1gb of ram and
MacOS 10.3.5) to heavily swap. After the spinning beachball and
temporary unresponsiveness end, top shows elevated pageouts and there
are extra swap files in /var/vm.

I've had the same problem with EndNote alone. For some reason, once in a
while the application goes crazy and hangs the entire machine for a while -
after which everything goes back to normal. I suspect your problem is
related. and then it looks like a bug in EnDNote :-\


Corentin

 

[Guest]

Hi,

It is also a Word 2004 problem as far as I know that also causes
unexpected quits of the application when copying/cutting/pasting text
without EndNote open or even installed. I hope Microsoft addresses
soon this annoying problem.

 

[Tony]

Hi,

It is also a Word 2004 problem as far as I know that also causes
unexpected quits of the application when copying/cutting/pasting text.
With EndNote not open or even not installed. I hope Microsoft
addresses soon this annoying problem.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Re unexpected quits, work through the troubleshooting measures here:
<http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/TroubleshootingIndex.htm>

EndNote does not need to be open to cause problems, the add-in only needs to
be in the startup folder for resulting glitches.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Ronald,

A comment--isn't the point of EN that you shouldn't need to edit the
bibliographic entries? Or did you mean double-clicking in the library
in EN itself?

Corentin runs both X and 2004 and only opens up X to do his EN formatting,
by the way, a method you could consider. 2004 ought to be better behaved
then, b/c there would be no EN add-in messing things up. You could
semi-replicate that by not using Instant Formatting, and installing EN CWYW
only when you wanted to actually format something. In Word 2001, I keep all
my EN fields unformatted until the last minute, and actually only format the
Saved As copy that I am going to send out, but do all my editing with EN
fields in their raw state. This is partially superstition, feeling that the
simpler a doc is the safer, but it is not necessary to have the add-in to
insert citation fields. A little applescript moves the add-in back and forth
as needed. Obviously, depending on your workflow (I don't send stuff out
that often), such things might or might not work for you.

By the way, there's much cursing on the EN email list re EN 8 for Windows
misbehaving, I'm not feeling sanguine re EN 8 for Mac.

A side question that struck me recently, perhaps you have an answer--does
having EN fields in footnotes that are then brought into another doc by
means of an IncludeText field (e.g., field within semi-field of notes within
yet another field) appear to cause difficulties, in your experience?

Dayo

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur [MVP]]

EndNote does not need to be open to cause problems, the add-in only needs to
be in the startup folder for resulting glitches.

Well EndNote 7 is not compatible with Word 2004 anyway. Their plug-in needs
to be rewritten for Word 2004. I simply deactivated it and I copy and paste
without any problem between the two apps.


Corentin

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur [MVP]]

In Word 2001, I keep all
my EN fields unformatted until the last minute, and actually only format the
Saved As copy that I am going to send out, but do all my editing with EN
fields in their raw state.

That's also what I do. You can of course unformat and reformat all the time,
but I found it to be a waste of time. I only format right before wrapping up
the whole thing and sending the manuscript out.


Corentin

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur [MVP]]

A side question that struck me recently, perhaps you have an answer--does
having EN fields in footnotes that are then brought into another doc by
means of an IncludeText field (e.g., field within semi-field of notes within
yet another field) appear to cause difficulties, in your experience?

Personally I can't say... None of the journals we submit manuscript to use
that kind of formatting.


Corentin

 

[Ronald Florence]

Dayo Mitchell wrote:

A side question that struck me recently, perhaps you have an answer--does
having EN fields in footnotes that are then brought into another doc by
means of an IncludeText field (e.g., field within semi-field of notes within
yet another field) appear to cause difficulties, in your experience?

So far I've had no problem with Endnote-formatted endnotes using
chapters inserted as links in a master. I've only used Word.X and CWYW
with Endnote 7, but I'm getting ready to try Word 2004 and will be
beta-testing Endnote 8. Because of the Non-Disclosure Agreement, I can
say nothing about it.

Since I am only writing book manuscripts now, I could use Corentin's
technique of delaying the actual formatting of notes until submission
time. Seems like a trouble-saver, and maybe a crash-preventer as well.

 

[Tony]

No add-ins in the Startup folder and the problem persists. EndNote not
installed ever.

---

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Then continue with the other troubleshooting measures listed on that page.
Such reproducible, regular crashes with an identifiable cause can usually be
solved by one of those techniques. Since you never had EndNote, it would
have been better to post your problem on a separate thread, by the way,
since it was not at all the same problem.

Note, in reference to your first post on this thread, that not everyone has
this problem. MS can't fix what's wrong on your machine.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

So far I've had no problem with Endnote-formatted endnotes using
chapters inserted as links in a master. I've only used Word.X and CWYW
with Endnote 7, but I'm getting ready to try Word 2004 and will be
beta-testing Endnote 8. Because of the Non-Disclosure Agreement, I can
say nothing about it.

Thanks much, someone asked me and I wasn't sure. Glad to hear you are
beta-testing 8, on the EndNote email list no one has reported they beta
tested the windows version and there was strong paranoia it wasn't tested at
all.... I'm debating whether I want to bother with it or switch to
Bookends, so whenever you can legally post information, people here will be
happy to get it. Hope it goes well.

Since I am only writing book manuscripts now, I could use Corentin's
technique of delaying the actual formatting of notes until submission
time. Seems like a trouble-saver, and maybe a crash-preventer as well.

Good idea! Glad that workaround doesn't mess up your workflow too much.
Although the point, of course, is that it lets you remove the troublesome
add-in, and only install it temporarily for those times it's absolutely
necessary.

Dayo

 

[Tony]

Hi Dayo,

Thanks for the feedback.

If possible, please, elaborate. What do you mean that not everyone has
this problem? Have you tested it? How do you know that it is something
wrong with my machine? I have no problem with other Custom Dictionaries
like English or French.

As far as I can tell this is a problem of Word 2004 only with the
Spanish Custom Dictionary. Or else, please prove me wrong.

In any case, what extra testing could I do.

Thanks again,


---

Note, in reference to your first post on this thread, that not everyone has
this problem. MS can't fix what's wrong on your machine.

---
Word 2004 cannot use the Spanish Custom Dictionary

From:
 "Tony" <[email protected]>
Sent:
 8/10/2004 11:44:46 AM

Hi,

Word 2004 cannot use the Spanish Custom Dictionary on Mac OS X
10.2.8.

When starting checking the spelling it says "The Custom Dictionary
"Spanish Custom Dictionary" is not available".

The error shows when I have selected my older Word v.X 10.1.4 (Office
10.1.5) Spanish Custom Dictionary, but also if I create a brand new
(blank) Spanish Custom Dictionary.

This problem is 100% consistent: all the times.

Yet, no problem with other custom dictionaries like the English or
French.

Any idea?

Thanks.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

I'm totally confused--there are two Tony's posting separate problems about
separate versions, but on the same thread, and under a completely unrelated
subject heading that talks about problems caused by Endnote. (Clearly
that's what I get for using newsgroups to escape writer's block

My reply re "MS can't fix your machine" was not to the Spanish Custom
Dictionary problem, which I didn't have any help for when I first saw it, it
was to a Tony who posted about crashes on cut n paste.

Let's kill this thread. Post questions in a new post starting a new thread,
with a good subject line.

Tony with the Spanish dictionary problem, you can work through the
techniques listed here
http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/TroubleshootingIndex.htm
cause that's all I have to suggest about that, and post any results or the
lack thereof as a reply to your original question posted on 8/10. With luck
it will catch someone else's attention who knows more re foreign languages
and Word X.
Your original post:
Subject: Word 2004 cannot use the Spanish Custom Dictionary
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 11:44:46 -0700
Lines: 20
Message-ID: <[email protected]>

Dayo