Word 2003 crashes

[Max]

Hi,

I've a recently joined a company that uses Word 2003 for heavy
documentation: 500 pages or more, with a lot of graphics like pps slides &
jpegs.

This has been creating severe crashes, screwing up page numbering etc. &
creating deadline tensions.

1. Is there a way of resolving this?
2. Also: Is there a way of coding a Word template (eg.) where the style
task pane can be set to display only styles used..something like FrameMaker.
The idea of coding is also to code a template in such a way that reduces
these crashes & errors.

Response appreciated.

Thanks

MS

 

[Terry Farrell]

To answer all your questions is pretty hard. Let's start by saying that Word
2003 is normally very stable. The causes of instability are so numerous. But
here's a brief idea:

Printer driver partially corrupt or not up to date or just plain badly
written
Bloated or partially corrupt normal.dot
Badly written or corrupt template
Third party add-ins from Adobe, Symantec and a host of other vendors
Poor hardware
Unpatched OS and Office

Styles display: did you check the options button at the bottom of the Styles
Task Pane?

What you really need is for a Word consultant/developer to come in and look
to see what the company is doing, examine your methods and platforms and
advise how to improve using best practices by creating templates and
introducing procedures. The majority of the companies that I have looked at
probably waste 40% or more of their time by not understanding or using even
Word's simplest potential. In larger companies this wastes many thousands of
hours a year, so the cost of a consultant is peanuts by comparison.