Specific Word documents; "Not responding", and Table format change

[PhilHack]

I am using Word 2003. I use documents set up with a series of styles;
Paragraph, Character and Table styles.

Some documents which I have been using happily for a long time have suddenly
locked; they open but immediately the CPU usage shoots up to 100% and I get
"Not responding". I have to shut the document down.

At the same time i notice that a table on the front page (which all my
documents have) has changed; its table style is defined, but it does not
appear in that style. (Because of the "Not responding" position, I can't see
whether the Style has redefined itself or fallen off.)

One such document was just 61 KB. I scanned with Symantec; no problems
found. I e-mailed that document home, where I have a better computer. CPU
usage hit 50%, not 100%, but it still went into "Not responding".

In other documents I have found unstyled tables reprogramming themselves on
occasion, putting the text within into some randomly chosen style. I do not
know if there is a connection, but the changed look of the table in the "Not
responding" documents suggests it.

What is wrong? Is there a way to cure it, and to recover the documents?

 

[Terry Farrell]

Try using the Open & Repair option (it's found by clicking the little arrow
attached to the OPEN button of the File Open dialog).

If that works, it should either list what errors it found and corrected or
will enable you to see what has happened to the front table (which could
easily be the problem).

 

[PhilHack]

Thanks; I'll keep that one handy.

An update though - while I could not open the document, I went in through
the back door. I used the "Styles & Formatting" - "Organizer" to delete from
the document one of the defined table styles (the one used on the front
page). Then the document opened without trouble.

In the document I found that all the tables had lost their styling. The text
within the tables (which had been just "Normal" in every case) was in
paragraph styles which had never been applied there. Bizarre.

I reapplied to each table its proper table style, which restored the text
within. I redefined and reapplied the front page table style whose deletion
had been the key to opening the document. I have had no problem with it
after that.

Something is odd though if tables can unilaterally redefine themselves or
the text within them. That has happened to me on a few occasions before,
without necessarily triggering a "Not responding" problem.

 

[Terry Farrell]

I'm not sure why this is happening but I will agree that table styles aren't
really up to scratch yet - even in Word 2007.

At least you have your documents back without any disasters!

Terry