Sudden trouble with Entourage and Word for Mac

[Jeff]

Hope somebody can help -- here part of my Chat session with Apple
Support to explain the situation.

Last night, I downloaded the software update that came through on the
automatic alert -- I think it was the latest OS X upgrades. At that
time I did not restart the computer as I normally do, because I was
working on other things. I simply chose the Shut Down option when I was
done. This morning I started up again and since I did, I cannot get any
of my MS Office for Mac apps to work properly. Since the only thing
that changed was that the update was downloaded and must have been
installed when I booted up this morning, that's the only thing I can
point to as a possible cause. I can open a Word document, but the
pinwheel just keeps spinning and I can't actually do anything. Worse,
when I click on Entourage, the window opens, but it is blank, and the
pinwheel just spins and spins and it is never populated with anything.
I've had to force quit from both. I restarted the machine but the same
thing happens.

The agent had me try using Entourage and Word in another user's
account. Both worked fine. Which led to...

Agent:
Jeffery ,The issue is with the Preferences for Microsoft office .Since
I am not trained on the product and not aware of the preferences files
for Microsoft office please contact Microsft as they will be able help
that you can get .

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

The standard troubleshooting measures for Word you will find listed here:

http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/TroubleshootingIndex.htm
(hit refresh a few times in Safari, or use a different browser)

There is a link for Damaged Preferences. The Entourage prefs are in the
same place as the Word ones.

But sometimes it's easier to just switch user accounts.

Hope that helps,
DM

 

[Jeff]

Daiya,
I thank you for this, but I still have a problem. I cannot locate the
Preferences files for Word or Office on my iMac. They certainly don't
show up in any directory starting with ~/ as shown in the article, and
I have searched and scrolled around for them without success. How can
this be possible?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

You missed the part where ~ stands for username (at least I think there's a
note somewhere about that)

Username/library/preferences/microsoft folder

 

[Jeff]

Okay, I think I have finally straightened this out -- at least, for
Word; must still check on Entourage.
Just FYI, the reason I had so much trouble finding the file -- besides
the fact that the article doesn't actually say that "~" stands for User
Name -- is that on my machine the Word preferences file is not found
under "Preferences /Microsoft/Word Settings" as indicated in the
article, but under "com.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist".
What's still a mystery to me is why this happened -- was it connected
with the OS X 10.9.3 update download? That's the only change I can
point to, but it doesn't explain why only MY preferences were affected,
not the other users!

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Preferences corrupt. I think it is a mystery.

The article does actually list Preferences /Microsoft/Word Settings 10 for
Word X and com.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist for Word 2004, including the
filepath. I'm not sure where your problem arose? Did the page not load
properly?

But we will add the note about what ~ means. (It's in the equivalent of an
earlier chapter but not repeated for those who might only read this chapter,
oops).

 

[Jeff]

Unfortunately, the mystery continues. While Word is now working fine,
Entourage is completely unusable, and I have tried removing every
preference file I could find, AND using the disk repair utility as
mentioned in the article to find and repair permissions problems, but
nothing has worked. I have gone back to using Apple Mail, which is
fine, except that all the mail I had stored in Entourage is
inaccessible. Also have not yet tried to see if I can import all the
contacts I had in Entourage into Apple Mail or Address Book. I was
using Entourage as my default e-mail program since it had integrated
Project classifications, contacts, and calendar. Oddly enough, though I
couldn't open Entourage, the Office Notifications that Calendar
generates were still popping up (yesterday, at least).

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Oh, no one answered this message, did they? Sorry.

Re entourage, I'm not very good, though others here are. You probably need
to repair the database in some way. I think you still haven't said what
version for you are using? For that, in Entourage, it really matters.

Anyhow, let this thread die--use google groups to search the entourage
newsgroup and if necessary post there:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office.entourage

Or check out the Entourage FAQ page:
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>

I think a Remove and Reinstall would not help, since your Ent database
appears to be corrupt.

Daiya