Major Find Box Problems

[beasriver]

Hi Everyone,

I just found this group while searching for help with my Word problem.
I'd appreciate any help you all can offer; I am getting pretty darn
frustrated.

I am using MS Word 2004 for Mac, Version 11.2- I have Office 2004
Standard installed. I'm running OS 10.2.8 w/ 832 MB on my 450 MHz G4
Cube, 4+gigs left on my HD, so I meet all the system requirements. My
Cube has performed like a dream until this.... Here goes:

I am working with a very lengthy document which requires me to use the
Find box repeatedly, searching for how often and where many words and
phrases are used in the doc. Here are my multiple Find problems:

1. The Find function doesn't let me see the page number of each
occurance of the word- the status bar of the document stays greyed out
until I click on the page to reactivate it. So I have to toggle back
and forth between the Find Box and my doc page in order to see the page
number that a word is on- talk about slowing things to a snail's pace.
Oh, forgive me, it actually showed the page numbers properly with 3
random searches- amongst hundreds.....Don't ask me why.

2. Find is not finding all the occurances of a word a lot of the time.
I know this because these are oddball words and I've watched Find skip
right over them on a page while it only selects some of them. Picky
picky picky.

3. Find sometimes reacts to punctuation, in particular, commas, and
won't locate a word if a comma comes right after it. Talk about stuck
up.

4. Find sometimes bounces back and forth in the doc as I check page
numbers, instead of going sequentially through the pages. Hyperactive?

5. In double checking my list of phrases of two words or more that I
know are there, and Find recognised them before, Find now has amnesia
with many of them and says they aren't in the doc. Repeatedly. In order
to find them again I have to abbreviate the phrase or search by a
single word or the like. Sigh.

6. Sometimes if I try to press Find a little too much to 'try again' it
freezes and I have to Force Quit. More sighs.

7. Sometimes it will show results that are a portion of a word, as
opposed to selecting the 'Find whole words only' box, and sometimes it
won't- even though it should. Maybe it flips some kind of internal
coin?

I'm trying to keep a sense of humor as I write this, but really, enough
is enough. Reading all this, it just seems nuts- and it is. What is the
deal?

So, are any of you reading this and saying, "Aha! I know what the deal
is!" Do you know how to solve this craziness? Any portion of it. Pick a
number, any number. Or how would you try to fix it? Is my trustworthy,
faithful Cube overwhelmed, could I have a bad install? What do you
think?

Cheers, Everyone, any suggestions would really be most appreciated.

 

[PhilD]

Hi Everyone,

I just found this group while searching for help with my Word problem.
I'd appreciate any help you all can offer; I am getting pretty darn
frustrated.

Hi,

Same way I found the group

3. Find sometimes reacts to punctuation, in particular, commas, and
won't locate a word if a comma comes right after it. Talk about stuck
up.

Sounds like you have the word *with a space* in the find box.
Therefore, "word with a comma" is different and is passed over. Did
you double click the search word, then copy and paste into the find
box?

4. Find sometimes bounces back and forth in the doc as I check page
numbers, instead of going sequentially through the pages. Hyperactive?

This *may* be because, when you click back into the document window,
it's *not* repositioning the cursor at the first click thus restarting
the search from the same place as before <1st click = select document,
2nd click = place cursor here>

6. Sometimes if I try to press Find a little too much to 'try again' it
freezes and I have to Force Quit. More sighs.

Take it easy, slow down!





Hope that there's *something* of help here.

PhilD (not an expert, just a regular user)

 

[Klaus Linke]

It also sounds as if you're trying to compile an index... the hard way.
If that's the case, check out the built-in indexing instead. It might take a
while to sift through the help and get it working, but it'll be much simpler
in the long run.

Regards,
Klaus

 

[beasriver]

Thanks, PhilD.
You have given me three common sense suggetions for those problems, and
I think you are right. #3 is especially interesting- I thought Find
wasn't supposed to react to things like 'the word *with a space* in the
find box.' I will pay more attention to that now.
Cheers

 

[beasriver]

Klaus Linke wrote:

It also sounds as if you're trying to compile an index... the hard way.

If that's the case, check out the built-in indexing instead. It might
take a
while to sift through the help and get it working, but it'll be much
simpler
in the long run.

Regards,
Klaus


Hi Klaus
Thanks for your suggestion. You are close- I am working on a glossary
and footnoting. I will definitely check out Word's indexing feature- it
may come in handy.

I'm having problems with replying to your message- sorry for the
formatting.

Cheers

 

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

In addition to what others have said, you're a little light on free disk
space to be working on a long document. 20 GB free is about as low as you
should go when wanting to work quickly in long documents.

Either archive some stuff of that disk or replace it with a new one. Me, I
would replace it: it's getting old enough by now that it will start showing
its age soon

Cheers

Klaus Linke wrote:

It also sounds as if you're trying to compile an index... the hard way.

If that's the case, check out the built-in indexing instead. It might
take a
while to sift through the help and get it working, but it'll be much
simpler
in the long run.

Regards,
Klaus


Hi Klaus
Thanks for your suggestion. You are close- I am working on a glossary
and footnoting. I will definitely check out Word's indexing feature- it
may come in handy.

I'm having problems with replying to your message- sorry for the
formatting.

Cheers

--

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 4 1209 1410