Insert picture from file causes beachballing

[ukmacposts]

Hi

Whenever I insert a graphic using insert>picture>from file ... Word can
take anything up to minute to open the dialoge box. I've done all of
the usual things to try to fix this:
trashing all the word .plist files I can find. Telling Word where to
look for pictures in the file locations in the prefs (after trashing
..plist files). I even got so frustrated by this - because I use this
feature a lot for school - that I reinstalled and updated the whole
Office suite to see if I could make it go away. No difference. I saw
all that stuff about duplicate fonts on here and, just for completeness
(though I don't expect it's related), sorted that out too.

One thing that does spring to mind is that I did once use the force
prebinding (or words to that effect) function in Onyx and noticed this
problem not long after. Again I can't say there's any causality there.

Office 2004 all latest updates
Tiger latest
G5 PM with 2GB RAM
Permissions repaired
Diskwarriored recently.

Any help appreciated.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hi
Hi,

Whenever I insert a graphic using insert>picture>from file ... Word can
take anything up to minute to open the dialoge box. I've done all of
the usual things to try to fix this:

What type of graphic file ??
Is quicktime up to date ??

[...]

One thing that does spring to mind is that I did once use the force
prebinding (or words to that effect) function in Onyx and noticed this
problem not long after. Again I can't say there's any causality there.

Force-prebinding is pretty useless since 10.3 (maybe 10.2 - I dont;
remember). The system now re-prebinds automatically if ever it needs to.
Additionally I don't think it could make any difference in your case.

Corentin

 

[ukmacposts]

What type of graphic file ??
Is quicktime up to date ??

Any type of graphic/picture file. The insert>picture>from file ... menu
route should just call up the dialogue to locate a file of whatever
sort shouldn't it? It can't get upset about the type of file because it
doesn't know what kind until I choose it. It is that dialogue that is
delayed. Once it's there the files go in no probs. That and I can drag
and drop any kind of image from the finder straight into word and works
perfectly. It's just the menu route that seems to be stuffed.

Yes Quicktime is the very latest.

Thanks for taking an interest in this prob. Any other thoughts would be
welcome.

 

[googmeister]

Hi

Whenever I insert a graphic using insert>picture>from file ... Word can
take anything up to minute to open the dialoge box. I've done all of
the usual things to try to fix this:
trashing all the word .plist files I can find. Telling Word where to
look for pictures in the file locations in the prefs (after trashing
.plist files). I even got so frustrated by this - because I use this
feature a lot for school - that I reinstalled and updated the whole
Office suite to see if I could make it go away. No difference. I saw
all that stuff about duplicate fonts on here and, just for completeness
(though I don't expect it's related), sorted that out too.

One thing that does spring to mind is that I did once use the force
prebinding (or words to that effect) function in Onyx and noticed this
problem not long after. Again I can't say there's any causality there.

Office 2004 all latest updates
Tiger latest
G5 PM with 2GB RAM
Permissions repaired
Diskwarriored recently.

Any help appreciated.

Are you by any chance importing the pictures via a samba shared
network drive? Many people have reported problems accessing
files via samba with Office 2004 + latest version of Tiger. Something
to do with file locking. Also check that the directory Word is using
to search for image files exists / is not corrupt / is readable.
Good luck!

 

[ukmacposts]

(e-mail address removed) wrote:
Snip

Are you by any chance importing the pictures via a samba shared
network drive? Many people have reported problems accessing
files via samba with Office 2004 + latest version of Tiger. Something
to do with file locking.

No, it's the internal drive.

Also check that the directory Word is using
to search for image files exists / is not corrupt / is readable.
Good luck!

Directory exists and is readable. If I change to another directory it
has the same problm. Interestingly the same insert sequence is slow but
not as slow in PowerPoint and Excel. Perhaps Office 2004 is just clunky
in Tiger?

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Any type of graphic/picture file. The insert>picture>from file ... menu
route should just call up the dialogue to locate a file of whatever
sort shouldn't it?

Very true.

It can't get upset about the type of file because it
doesn't know what kind until I choose it. It is that dialogue that is
delayed. Once it's there the files go in no probs. That and I can drag
and drop any kind of image from the finder straight into word and works
perfectly. It's just the menu route that seems to be stuffed.

Yes Quicktime is the very latest.

Thanks for taking an interest in this prob. Any other thoughts would be
welcome.

Try dragging the images directly in the Word document. I have no idea
why it beachballs. It sounds to me there is some corruption in your Mac
(pref or cache). Drag and drop could maybe workaround this problem (but
not fix it).
At one point, I'd consider trashing some of the pref and cache files -
with the obvious caveat that you'll then also lose all other
customization you might have in these files :-\


Corentin

 

[ukmacposts]

Try dragging the images directly in the Word document. I have no idea
why it beachballs. It sounds to me there is some corruption in your Mac
(pref or cache). Drag and drop could maybe workaround this problem (but
not fix it).
At one point, I'd consider trashing some of the pref and cache files -
with the obvious caveat that you'll then also lose all other
customization you might have in these files :-\

Thanks Corentin. Yes that workaround works around it but don't you hate
having spent all that money and having to workaround stuff?

Your cache and pref deleting idea sounds sensible. But do you have any
idea where to begin. There's awful lot of caches and pref files out
there ...

Cheers

D

 

[googmeister]

From my experience in Powerpoint, the drag-and-drop image operation

is completely different from Insert->Picture. (In my opinion, this was
a
terrible interface design decision. One consequence is that drag-and-
dropped images are no longer viewable if you try to read in Windows
Office.) But maybe this helps explain why one works and the other
doesn't.

Yes that workaround works around it but don't you hate
having spent all that money and having to workaround stuff?

Yes, especially when previous versions of Office on Mac and Windows
don't suffer from these problems. I'm just hoping that in the next
version I can launch Word without it hanging when I decide to remove
some useless East Asian font from my system. Just substitute the
friggin font with something else, and let me get back to work. I'm
sure the MVPs are sick of this one by now.

 

[Elliott Roper]

Thanks Corentin. Yes that workaround works around it but don't you hate
having spent all that money and having to workaround stuff?

Your cache and pref deleting idea sounds sensible. But do you have any
idea where to begin. There's awful lot of caches and pref files out
there ...

I had one idea after seeing your earlier post. If it is beachballing in
the insert picture from file dialog, try a different picture in a
folder with very few pictures in it.

Stupid OS X goes beserk creating previews of pictures I don't want
before letting me scroll to the picture I do want, whether it is Word
or GraphicConverter's file open dialog. In a folder with a thousand
pictures, you get a lot of beachball together with the sound of a disk
rattling its pore l'il heads off.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

is completely different from Insert->Picture. (In my opinion, this was
a
terrible interface design decision. One consequence is that drag-and-
dropped images are no longer viewable if you try to read in Windows
Office.) But maybe this helps explain why one works and the other
doesn't.

Drag and drop from the Finder is perfectly OK. Dragging and dropping
directly from another application is the problem: the image is actually
copied - then inserted in PICT which doesn't render in Windows.

Corentin

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Your cache and pref deleting idea sounds sensible. But do you have any
idea where to begin. There's awful lot of caches and pref files out
there ...

Since I don;t know whether the problem is with Office or the System, I
would trash the Office prefs and cache files, then use a utility like
Cocktail (shareware), TinkerTool System (shareware) or Onyx (free I
beleive) to trash all system and user cache (then reboot immediately).
It's a bit drastic, but it usually helps a lot. Repair permissions as
well (through Disk Utility).

The prefs and cache files for Office should should worry about are
located in ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft (go in the Finder, press
command-shift-G and paste this link). You'll need to quit all Office
apps before playing around with them.

You might want to actually just move these prefs in a different location
and try again in the app to see whether it makes any difference. If it
doesn't, you can move them back in their regular location to restore
your customizations.

Corentin

 

[googmeister]

Drag and drop from the Finder is perfectly OK. Dragging and dropping
directly from another application is the problem: the image is actually
copied - then inserted in PICT which doesn't render in Windows.

Oh, didn't realize this. That's good news. Just to confirm - if I
drag-and-drop from app to Desktop, then drag-and-drop from
Desktop to ppt, the image should remain viewable under Windows?

Still non-intuitive to me, but at least more useful.