no menus or elements gallery in word?

[ajs]

I've just installed Office 2008 - Excel, PP & Entourage are fine, however there's no elements gallery in Word, no menus, nothing but the ruler at the top of the screen. I've reinstalled Office twice and restarted my MacBook Pro and still nothing. As the installation removed Office X & Office 2004, I am left without a working WP.... - or am I missing some clever new minimalist approach from MS????

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

are you missing the File, Edit, etc menus?

 

[ajs]

Hi Dalya
Yes, There's nothing in the document window, apart from the title, ruler & standard Mac red, amber & red window buttons. The only menus at the top of the screen are Word (Prefs, Services, Hide, etc & Quit, but Prefs doesn't work) plus the Applescript Automator Menu.
I wondered if the menus were hidden (I'm familiar with the new Windows Office our PCs use) but I fear it's a glitch. Excel etc., are complete and as expected. I've scanned all the forums and can see nothing like this mentioned - the price for being an early adopter I suppose, but that's my job! I won't be recommending an upgrade for the Macs at my university if this is what happens.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

It's a glitch--you are the second person to mention it, but other than
that it's a new one. Thanks for this precise description.

What OS?

Diagnostic tricks to help locate the cause of the problem:

1) Log out of your user account, then hold down shift while logging back
in. If the problem disappears, it is probably due to some conflict with
the login items/utilities in your user account.

2) create a new user account in OS X and test in that one. If the
problem disappears, then the installation is fine but some user-specific
file has corrupted.

Post back with what happens.

 

[ajs]

Thanks for the tips - I think we're slowly getting there.

I'm using OS X 10.4.11

Holding down shift while logging in makes no difference but logging in using new accounts, both admin & standard does. Each first time user is faced with Office Setup Assistant including user name etc details - I've never seen this screen before! Tried using the Setup app directly but it takes me to the Customer Exp Improv Prog screen. I guess if I could delete my user ID I could start again. Is there something in Library I could edit/delete or do I need to dive into Terminal?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

No need to dive into Terminal. And you would not want to *delete* your
user account in OS X, but simply start a new user account and migrate
your files to it.

The Office Setup Assistant should just be trying to set up a new
identity---that's normal to see it when launching for the first time in
a new account, as it stores your name to use in templates, etc. Usually
when a new user account solves the problem that suggests Remove and
Reinstall isn't going to solve the problem because the application
itself is working fine, some user-specific file has corrupted.

You might start by testing Normal templates--follow the instructions here:
http://word.mvps.org/mac/MacWordNormal.html
BUT, test the 2008 Normal template AND see if you have any Normal
templates left over from previous versions and test them too--they could
be causing problems.

Actually, also look for settings files from previous versions as
explained in #1 here:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Word2008Issues.html#LaunchCrash

Are you up for extended troubleshooting to track down the issue? If so,
I'll holler for a developer to work with you.

 

[ajs]

I can get Word to start ok by using Shift/Open (didn't seem to work earlier) so I guess there's still a conflict. I've deleted the Normal templates plus all the recovery files from the '08 installation and there are no files in Prefs previous to 2004.

I've also been following ideas given in the similar thread 1071 but still no menus.

I'm quite willing to use extended troubleshooting as I'm anxious to get up & running!

 

[ajs]

Hi Dalya & Co

I think I've found a solution.

1 Log in as admin
2 Create shared folder at root level
3 Open ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/User Templates/
4 Copy Normal.dot to shared folder
5 Open ~Library/Preferences
6 Copy com.microsoft.Word.plist to shared folder
7 Copy com.microsoft.office.plist to shared folder
8 Log out of admin
9 Log into problem account account
10 Replace files in respective places
11 Open Word
12 After 30 second wait - Voilà - Word + menus!

Apologies for non-scientific approach & not being able to identify whether all 3 files or just 1 or 2 were necessary....

Thanks so much for your help & inspiration - hope this solution will be useful!

John
Southsea, UK

 

[Curt Laird]

Hi ajs,
Based on your solution below, it appears to be a problem with preferences.
The issue should be remedied by simply deleting one or more of these files.

Would you mind sending me the original (problematic) preference files and
your Normal template so I can troubleshoot this further? I¹d like to try and
determine the exact cause. My e-mail is below.

Also, did you by chance create a custom toolbar in any of your older
versions of Word?

Thanks,


Curt

Hi Dalya & Co

I think I've found a solution.

1 Log in as admin
2 Create shared folder at root level
3 Open ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/User Templates/
4 Copy Normal.dot to shared folder
5 Open ~Library/Preferences
6 Copy com.microsoft.Word.plist to shared folder
7 Copy com.microsoft.office.plist to shared folder
8 Log out of admin
9 Log into problem account account
10 Replace files in respective places
11 Open Word
12 After 30 second wait - Voilà - Word + menus!

Apologies for non-scientific approach & not being able to identify whether all
3 files or just 1 or 2 were necessary....

Thanks so much for your help & inspiration - hope this solution will be
useful!

John
Southsea, UK

--
Curt Laird
Software Development Engineer in Test
Microsoft MacBU - Word
(e-mail address removed) (remove ³ONLINE² for all replies)

This posting is provided ³AS IS² with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[mkrzych]

I have many problems with toolbar refreshing/redrawing, when I click on the desktop and then into any office 2008 application, some items in the menu toolbar becames unvisible - until I move the mouse courson on them cousing redrawing. Very annoying. I am running Macbook Interl Core duo 1.83GHz with 2GB of RAM. I have tried any solution presented here - nothing has changed! Very annoying, how to fix it???

 

[John McGhie]

You actually do NOT have the "Menus and Elements Gallery" problem.

You have the "Partial Redraw" problem. Which is a great pity, because we do
not yet know the answer to yours :-(

You don't say which OS you're using? But if you are using Spaces, turn that
off. If you have the Project Gallery open, set that to NOT show at startup,
and close it. If you have the Preview window open in Entourage, close it.

I suspect that your problem is that a runaway process is running your
machine out of power and it can't get enough power or memory to draw the
screen properly.

But it's a wild guess....

I have many problems with toolbar refreshing/redrawing, when I click on the
desktop and then into any office 2008 application, some items in the menu
toolbar becames unvisible - until I move the mouse courson on them cousing
redrawing. Very annoying. I am running Macbook Interl Core duo 1.83GHz with
2GB of RAM. I have tried any solution presented here - nothing has changed!
Very annoying, how to fix it???

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]