Word 2004 freezing on larger documents

[denniss2]

I am using Word 2004 on an iBook. It works fine for smaller documents
that use no complicated features, but once I use styles (so I can get
Word to generate a contents page) it starts to freeze on me.

I use Endnote referencing software with Word, and get Endnote to insert
references to my documents. I have no problems with Word after only
doing this. However once I start using styles, Word starts to pause on
me for a few seconds soon after opening each document, after which it
is fine until I quit the program and restart it again. As the document
becomes larger these pauses rapidly become longer, until Word is
freezing completely rather than pausing.

When I open a saved larger document, Word freezes after a few seconds.
However there is just enough time before it freezes to select all,
copy, and close the document. I can then open a new document, paste my
old document into the new document, save the new document, and work
with no problems until I next quit Word. When I start Word the next day
it will freeze again, and I will have to do the same process again.
This is getting very frustrating, as I will have 15 versions of the
same document on my computer, and it is a fuss every day.

What on earth could it be doing, and how could I fix it?

My computer is a 933 MHz G4 iBook with 640 MB RAM, running OSX 10.3.9.

Thankyou,
Samuel

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Samuel,

If you remove the EndNote CWYW plug-in from the Word Startup Folder (in
apps/ms office/office/startup/word--quit word first), does the problem
continue to occur?

Daiya

 

[denniss2]

Daiya
No, that seems to fix it. I should have isolated that myself first. The
problem must be with the Endnote plugin. However I cannot just remove
Endnote as my solution, I require Endnote for my studies. Is there any
way you can think of around the problem?
Thankyou very much,
Samuel

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Samuel,

Okay, this is workaround-able.

Make sure all your updates are in place, and check the EndNote support page
to see what they say about your particular conjunction of versions, because
while EndNote is notoriously problematic, it is supposed to work, and it
does work for other people (as far as I know). More or less, anyhow.
http://endnote.com/support/ensupport.asp

Then, see if installing the EndNote plugin but turning off Instant
Formatting fixes the problem. Instant Formatting keeps all the EndNote
fields formatted automatically, but it does make extra demands on memory and
linkages that can cause issues. So keeping it off is a good idea.

If turning off Instant Formatting doesn't work, you actually don't need the
EndNote plugin enabled to use EndNote. You can copy and paste from the
EndNote library to the Word doc instead of using Insert Citation. You just
copy from the library, paste in Word, and the EndNote field shows up in the
document. So that's the major functionality that you need.

I used to use the copy and paste method, and install the EndNote plugin only
when I needed to run Format Bibliography, and uninstall it when I was done
formatting, and that worked fine. EndNote looks for all the unformatted
fields and formats them. (Installing/uninstalling is just a question of
quitting Word and dragging the plug-ins in or out of the Word Startup
folder--I actually wrote a little applescript to do this in one click, as I
was doing it frequently for a while there)

If you find that you can't even run Format Bibliography without crashing,
then you can use the RTF Document scan feature to format the
citations--check the EndNote help re using processors other than Word.

Side note: As a historian with no co-writers, who doesn't need to share
EndNote libraries, I myself might switch to Bookends the next time I am
actively needing secondary citations, rather than buy EndNote 9.
http://sonnysoftware.com/
Of course, I've been saying that for a while and not done it yet.

 

[denniss2]

Thankyou very much, that is awesome. Turning off instant formatting
doesn't fix it, but I will play around with installing & uninstalling
it etc like you have suggested. I didn't realise Endnote was known to
be problematic. Great to talk to someone who has already had issues and
worked out how to solve them. Thankyou for your time.

Samuel