PC Word file hangs Mac Word 2008

G

Glasair2

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Power PC

I've been trying to open a PC Word file on my Mac 2008 Word program. When I try to open it, it goes into an infinite repagination routine until, at some point, it just hangs. I let it run to the end once and it crashed at about 35,000 pages. The actual document is 107 pages long.

I've tried to take it back to the PC and do a save-as as an xml, web page, rtf, and Word rtf, and always get the same result.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?
 
J

John McGhie

Yes, there are a few of us who know how to fix it, but the fix can be
laborious. It is much faster to go back to the PC and get a fresh copy if
you can.

The cause is a corrupt paragraph. There may be more than one, and they are
usually immediately before or after a table or graphic.

There's a quick way and a slow way. The quick way loses all the formatting
and all the graphics.

Quick Way:

1) Close the file.

2) From Word, use File>Open

3) Change "Enable" at the top of the dialog to "Recover text from any file"

4) Navigate to the file and click Open.

You will get just the text, no formatting, no graphics, no headers and
footers, no footnotes ...

If you have a little more time (a LOT more time...!)

Slow Way:

1) Open the document

2) Press Command + period (.) to stop the repagination.

3) Change the View to "Draft"

If Word crashes when you do this, then you will have to go back to the PC
and get a fresh copy.

4) Divide the file in half, and save both halves under new file names.
Make sure you save in the new .docx format. You will never fix this if you
try to use the old format.

5) If there is only one corrupt paragraph, the bad one will be in one half,
the other half will behave properly.

6) Divide the bad half in half...

7) Keep this up until you have only one paragraph in each half :) Then
you know which the bad paragraph is.

8) Delete it then re-type it into the document. Do NOT copy any part of
the bad paragraph, or you will copy the problem and you'll have to start
over.

This method will keep everything in the document except the bad paragraphs

I told you it was laborious! But if you have great patience, you will fix
the document this way.

Hope this helps

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Power PC

I've been trying to open a PC Word file on my Mac 2008 Word program. When I
try to open it, it goes into an infinite repagination routine until, at some
point, it just hangs. I let it run to the end once and it crashed at about
35,000 pages. The actual document is 107 pages long.

I've tried to take it back to the PC and do a save-as as an xml, web page,
rtf, and Word rtf, and always get the same result.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?

--

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, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]
 
M

mxk

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Power PC

I've been trying to open a PCWordfile on my Mac 2008Wordprogram. When I try to open it, it goes into an infinite repagination routine until, at some point, it just hangs. I let it run to the end once and it crashed at about 35,000 pages. The actual document is 107 pages long.

I've tried to take it back to the PC and do a save-as as an xml, web page,rtf, andWordrtf, and always get the same result.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?

Hi,

Why not try Advanced Word Repair at http://www.datanumen.com/awr/ ?
It recovers several important Word documents for me and is really
helpful!

Alan
 
C

CyberTaz

Hello -

First - disregard the ad from 'mxk'. Their product is Window-only and if
they can't distinguish between newsgroups it's unlikely their product can.

The infinite repagination is a classic symptom of a corrupt document. If
you're having no problems with it on the PC side, however, it suggests that
it either has content that isn't usable on a Mac (so it's being interpreted
as corruption) or the copies you're transferring to the Mac are getting
corrupted along the way. If you look in those directions you'll probably
find the cause to be some sort of object in the file. If not, try zipping
the file before moving it to the Mac & see if it better survives the trip.

There's also an update to 2008 due for release before long which may improve
the compatibility as well. Keep an eye open for it.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac
 

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