Word crashes on large documents

[ahostmadsen]

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

First let me congratulate Mac BU with Mac Word. I find it a delightful program to work with. The user interface is nicely done, and I prefer it to the previous windows versions I worked with (have not worked much with Word 2007 for windows). The toolbox works very well (better than the inspector in Apple programs) and makes work very efficient.

I just wished it was more stable (and faster). I work with a big document, about 50 pages, 7 MB, with equations, jpegs and pdfs inserted. The document started out as a windows .doc. Ever so often, perhaps every half hour, word crashes when I save (.docx). After that, I have to restart the computer (restarting word is not always sufficient), and then word can work another half hour on the same document. So, it's not an endemic problem with the document, its just appears that word gets exhausted working with the big document after some time.

Any suggestions? My guess is that it is just some bugs in word that will be corrected with time. I let word send a crash report to Microsoft after every crash, so I hope Microsoft uses these.

 

[Michel Bintener]

This might be a case of document corruption. Make sure to activate the
non-printing characters (Cmd+8, or the ¶ sign in the Standard toolbar), then
carefully select everything except for the last ¶ sign. Copy the selection
and paste it into a new document. Save it as a .docx file and see if the
stability issues persist.

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

First let me congratulate Mac BU with Mac Word. I find it a delightful program
to work with. The user interface is nicely done, and I prefer it to the
previous windows versions I worked with (have not worked much with Word 2007
for windows). The toolbox works very well (better than the inspector in Apple
programs) and makes work very efficient.

I just wished it was more stable (and faster). I work with a big document,
about 50 pages, 7 MB, with equations, jpegs and pdfs inserted. The document
started out as a windows .doc. Ever so often, perhaps every half hour, word
crashes when I save (.docx). After that, I have to restart the computer
(restarting word is not always sufficient), and then word can work another
half hour on the same document. So, it's not an endemic problem with the
document, its just appears that word gets exhausted working with the big
document after some time.

Any suggestions? My guess is that it is just some bugs in word that will be
corrected with time. I let word send a crash report to Microsoft after every
crash, so I hope Microsoft uses these.

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:mac (Entourage & Word)

*** Please always reply to the newsgroup. ***

 

[Elliott Roper]

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

First let me congratulate Mac BU with Mac Word. I find it a delightful
program to work with. The user interface is nicely done, and I prefer it to
the previous windows versions I worked with (have not worked much with Word
2007 for windows). The toolbox works very well (better than the inspector in
Apple programs) and makes work very efficient.

I just wished it was more stable (and faster). I work with a big document,
about 50 pages, 7 MB, with equations, jpegs and pdfs inserted. The document
started out as a windows .doc. Ever so often, perhaps every half hour, word
crashes when I save (.docx). After that, I have to restart the computer
(restarting word is not always sufficient), and then word can work another
half hour on the same document. So, it's not an endemic problem with the
document, its just appears that word gets exhausted working with the big
document after some time.

Any suggestions? My guess is that it is just some bugs in word that will be
corrected with time. I let word send a crash report to Microsoft after every
crash, so I hope Microsoft uses these.

All I can say is that you are easily pleased. I'll leave aside all the
UI and lack of functionality reasons I have for hurling Office 2008 to
the floor and concentrate on the crashing.

Firstly, 50 pages and a few equations and pictures is a tiny document.
Several regular posters here work on documents with thousands of pages.

Secondly, almost without exception (pun only partly accidental), the
only valid reason for OS X becoming unusable after an application
software mishap is faulty hardware.

A possible exception is your network environment. Sometimes OS X is a
little less than perfect when dealing with some bits of network
protocols and their timeouts. Mexican standoffs are not unheard of. A
network operation may not complete, and the OS may stall a process
forever, pining for a reply. (Finder and Mobile Me have left their
scars on me f'rinstance)

So, if you are saving your .docx to your company or college network
when it falls over, try working locally. Slurp the file from the server
to your own machine with Finder, work on it there, save it there, and
copy the work back to the server using the Finder. Don't give Office a
chance to use your network file system. If anything can break it,
Office can.
I don't use Word 2008, but earlier versions were famous for getting
cranky across networks, not least because they chose cross-network
locations for some temporary files.

Try chopping your problem in half in other ways too. Does the crash
occur with one particular document and not others of the same general
flavour?

In the old days, it was not unheard of for Word documents to gradually
corrupt themselves, accreting more and more evil detritus with every
change. docx was supposed to clean all that up, but colour me cynical.
The old folk remedy, known as a "Maggie" was to select and copy all but
the final paragraph mark, create a fresh document, and paste.
Paragraph marks appear as pilcrows when invisibles are displayed
(toggle that setting with cmd-8) The final pilcrow is the outward and
visible sign of Microsoft's inward and spiritual grace, where divine
knowledge of the screwed up data structures surrounding your text is
held. Somehow you can leave all that behind and by some astounding
magical process, create a perfect uncorrupted representation of the
same inner grace in a new copy. If Microsoft can pull that off, why
can't they stop the damn thing screwing itself up in the first place?
Anyway, try it on your crashy document.

Word should not crash. Ever! You do well to send in those crash reports.
Furthermore, if OS X ever needs a restart as a result of Word falling
over, that is also, if not primarily, Apple's problem. Please send them
a full report too. An operating system in perfect working order should
never be harmed by a userland application crashing. Apple will be very
interested.

Two closing remarks:-
1. Hardware really OK?
2. http://word.mvps.org/mac/troubleshootingindex.html

 

[ahostmadsen]

This might be a case of document corruption. Make sure to activate the

non-printing characters (Cmd+8, or the � sign in the Standard toolbar), then
carefully select everything except for the last � sign. Copy the selection
and paste it into a new document. Save it as a .docx file and see if the
stability issues persist.


On 09/10/08 18:07, in article (e-mail address removed)9absDaxw,
:


--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:mac (Entourage & Word)

*** Please always reply to the newsgroup. ***

Thanks for the trick, I tried to use it. I'm finished working on this document, so it's hard to say if it solved the crashing problem. However, the file size was reduced from 7Mb to 4.5Mb.

 

[ahostmadsen]

Two closing remarks:-

1. Hardware really OK?
2. <http://word.mvps.org/mac/troubleshootingindex.html>

I should have been more precise. After Word crashes OS X works fine. But Word crashes again almost immediately after re-starting it. Only after restarting the computer will Word by stable (for some time).

 

[Elliott Roper]

Two closing remarks:-
1. Hardware really OK?
2. <http://word.mvps.org/mac/troubleshootingindex.html>

I should have been more precise. After Word crashes OS X works fine. But Word
crashes again almost immediately after re-starting it. Only after restarting
the computer will Word by stable (for some time).[/QUOTE]

Now *that* is really dodgy. The only thing that could live across a
Word restart would be code libraries or fragments thereof that have not
yet been paged out. They *should* be read-only. If Word dies and dies
again on restart, then something has scribbled on them.

In your shoes, I'd be blaming hardware, especially memory.
If you have installed extra memory in your Mac, rip it out and try
again. Or find some other way of eliminating memory from consideration,
like borrow some.

Have a look at your crash reports. If you see 'kernel exception', that
is more evidence that Word is executing rubbish. (A kernel exception
occurs if a thread tries to read or write or execute from a memory
address on the wrong side of the fence the OS erects around it before
letting it loose.) If your memory is turning good code into rubbish it
is usually a very short wait before the loony is banging its head
against the fence.

Have you seen any other applications being more crashy than usual?

 

[Rod Hagen]

Hello adhostmadsen and Elliot,

this seems to be an all too common problem with Word2008 I'm afraid. It seems to particularly afflict people (like me) who regularly work on largish documents that get transferred between "platforms" (Mac to PC, PC to Mac).

Some of the contributing factors seem to include:

Problematic Microsoft font caches (try deleting the font cache from ~/User/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008 )

Use of unusual characters in unicode fonts

inserting images etc as or from pdf files

editing large documents in page view mode with track changes turned on

duplicate or corrupt fonts

low available memory issues (try not to keep too much else running and try a restart if the problem is occuring very frequently)

saving very regularly helps you recover quicker!

My own view, on the basis of personal experience and discussions with others with the problem, is that there are a few different issues that may be leading to these crashes.

Like many others, I'm sure we all hope MS and Apple can sort out the solutions before too much longer!

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Rod:

Well, they are certainly working on it.

Last month, I would have said this would all be fixed by the end of next
year.

This month, I am afraid it could be awhile before business rises far enough
out of the ashes of the disaster bought to you by George Bush and his
Republican cronies.

Rumour has it that I will be out of a job by the end of the year, and I
would imagine that any company selling software will practically stop
development until sales pick up again.

So we could all be waiting a while.

Cheers

Hello adhostmadsen and Elliot,

this seems to be an all too common problem with Word2008 I'm afraid. It seems
to particularly afflict people (like me) who regularly work on largish
documents that get transferred between "platforms" (Mac to PC, PC to Mac).

Some of the contributing factors seem to include:

Problematic Microsoft font caches (try deleting the font cache from
~/User/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008 )

Use of unusual characters in unicode fonts

inserting images etc as or from pdf files

editing large documents in page view mode with track changes turned on

duplicate or corrupt fonts

low available memory issues (try not to keep too much else running and try a
restart if the problem is occuring very frequently)

saving very regularly helps you recover quicker!

My own view, on the basis of personal experience and discussions with others
with the problem, is that there are a few different issues that may be leading
to these crashes.

Like many others, I'm sure we all hope MS and Apple can sort out the solutions
before too much longer!

--

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]