How to search text in, and spell-check, the Comments?

[Sumid]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel I have Word 12.2.4 with OS X.5.8 installed on my iMac.

Whenever I try to search for text (a word or phrase) within the Comments pane, Word crashes; that is, it closes with the error mssg "Word has experienced an unexpected problem and needs to close; would you like to report the problem to Microsoft?" (or something to that effect).

Older versions of Word for Windows (I used Windows 98 and Office 2000 on a PC before switching in '08 to a Mac and Office 2008) always let me select the entire Comments pane and do various tasks on them, including (1) searching for text, and (2) spell-check.

Now it appears I can't do either. Help...! As an editor by trade, these 2 problems are truly slowing me down!

Is there no way to reliably search for text within Comments? The only workaround I've discovered is to stick the cursor at the end of the main text before opening the Find window; then Word automatically moves from main text into Comments to search there, before returning to the start of main text. But it's annoying to have to move from where I am (in middle of my current 61K-word document to end of it) every time I want to search for word(s) in the Comments (to see whether I already queried a word or not, etc.).

As for spell-check, that option is greyed out on the Tools menu whenever I put my cursor in the Comments pane. Submitting unchecked Comments to authors is rather unprofessional, so I hope spell-check is available for the Comments and that I'm simply overlooking how to go about doing it...

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

There's a variety of issues here:

1) The crash is probably coming from a corrupt document. Most likely
caused by Tracked Changes. Make a copy of the document, resolve all the
tracked changes, and try again.

Note: You need to close and re-open the document to clean it out.

2) Yes, if you go into Draft view, you can select just the Comments story
of the document.

3) The spelling checker is disabled in the Comments Pane but not in an
individual comment. This is a bug I had not seen before, and I have bugged
it for you.

Hope this helps

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel I
have Word 12.2.4 with OS X.5.8 installed on my iMac.

Whenever I try to search for text (a word or phrase) within the Comments pane,
Word crashes; that is, it closes with the error mssg "Word has experienced an
unexpected problem and needs to close; would you like to report the problem to
Microsoft?" (or something to that effect).

Older versions of Word for Windows (I used Windows 98 and Office 2000 on a PC
before switching in '08 to a Mac and Office 2008) always let me select the
entire Comments pane and do various tasks on them, including (1) searching for
text, and (2) spell-check.

Now it appears I can't do either. Help...! As an editor by trade, these 2
problems are truly slowing me down!

Is there no way to reliably search for text within Comments? The only
workaround I've discovered is to stick the cursor at the end of the main text
before opening the Find window; then Word automatically moves from main text
into Comments to search there, before returning to the start of main text.
But it's annoying to have to move from where I am (in middle of my current
61K-word document to end of it) every time I want to search for word(s) in the
Comments (to see whether I already queried a word or not, etc.).

As for spell-check, that option is greyed out on the Tools menu whenever I put
my cursor in the Comments pane. Submitting unchecked Comments to authors is
rather unprofessional, so I hope spell-check is available for the Comments and
that I'm simply overlooking how to go about doing it...

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Sumid]

Dear John: thanx for the swift reply. Your answers, however, prompted further questions & thoughts:

On #1: I close and reopen this document several times daily already, just to help cut down on these error mssgs, though I'm not convinced it does much good. (And just for good measure, the last few days I've started rebooting my computer at least once a day.)
   Just now I did as you suggested: made a copy of the file and then opened it. But: what do you mean by "resolve all the Tracked Changes"? (BTW, this new copy of the file is also producing the same error mssg as before whenever I try to search within the Comments pane, after hitting "search again" about 4-5x.)

On #2: When I'm draft mode, and I put my cursor into the Comments pane and run "Find" for a specific word that I know is there (I'm looking right at it), the program still searches within the main-text pane, not in the Comments pane. It's only when I select all or a portion of the Comments, and then do a search for something, that Word actually finds words in the Comments pane--and even then allows me only 4-5 "Find Again"s of a particular word, before producing the error mssg and closing abruptly. Is this an indication that Word on my computer (and not just the file I'm working with) may be corrupted? I updated Office only 3 days ago without any noticeable problems.

on #3: You say individual Comments can be spell-checked, but I can't even get that to work. Regardless whether I'm in Draft or Print Layout mode, or whether I put the cursor into a Comment or select a particular Comment or passage within a Comment, in all of these situations, Spelling & Grammar is consistently greyed out in the Tools menu. What should I do differently to get spell-check to work on individual Comments? (And what's "bugged it for you"--lingo for reporting a new bug to Microsoft?)

Thanx...

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

Hi Sumid:

On #1: I close and reopen this document several times daily already, just to
help cut down on these error mssgs, though I'm not convinced it does much
good.

When you delete anything in a Word file, the content is not actually removed
from the file until you save and close the file. If the problem was with
tracked changes, you would have to resolve the tracked changes, then save
and close the file, or you would not see the difference.

But: what do you mean by "resolve all the Tracked Changes"? (BTW, this
new copy of the file is also producing the same error mssg as before whenever
I try to search within the Comments pane, after hitting "search again" about
4-5x.)

If you don't know, then you have not been using Tracked Changes. You can
look up "Tracked Changes" in the Help. I recommend that you do not use them
anyway, because they can produce problems like you have!

On #2: When I'm draft mode, and I put my cursor into the Comments pane and run
"Find" for a specific word that I know is there (I'm looking right at it), the
program still searches within the main-text pane, not in the Comments pane.

I think that document is corrupt. Let's try a Maggie.

First, remove all section breaks from the document. All of them, they're
all linked. Then do a Maggie:

The Maggie:

1. Create a new blank document
2. Carefully select all of the text in the bad document EXCEPT the last
paragraph mark
3. Copy it.
4. Paste in the new document.
5. Save under a new file name and close all, then re-open.

This technique for de-corrupting is known as "Doing a 'Maggie'", after
Margaret Secara from the TECHWR-L mailing list, who first publicised the
technique.

It's only when I select all or a portion of the Comments, and then do a search
for something, that Word actually finds words in the Comments pane--and even
then allows me only 4-5 "Find Again"s of a particular word, before producing
the error mssg and closing abruptly. Is this an indication that Word on my
computer (and not just the file I'm working with) may be corrupted?

No, I would say that one specific section break in that document is corrupt.
When the focus moves into the corrupt section break, Word goes bang. It's
very unlikely that there is anything wrong with Word: the problem is almost
certainly in that document. It may also be in your Normal Template. Tell
us what happens when you do the things I have suggested and we will have a
better idea where to go from here...

on #3: You say individual Comments can be spell-checked, but I can't even get
that to work. Regardless whether I'm in Draft or Print Layout mode, or whether
I put the cursor into a Comment or select a particular Comment or passage
within a Comment, in all of these situations, Spelling & Grammar is
consistently greyed out in the Tools menu.

Check that the Language specified in the Comment Text style matches a
language you have installed. Then check that the language specified in the
text of the comment also matches a language you have installed.

See the Word Help topic "Apply a language format to text in a document" for
more information on how.

what's "bugged it for
you"--lingo for reporting a new bug to Microsoft?

Yep: "Bug" can be used as a verb in Modern English, so "bugged it" means
"Entered it into the Microsoft bug database". With luck, it will get fixed
in the next version of Office.

Hope this helps

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]