Word crashes on typing characters

[Stephen Poley]

I've spent some time hunting in the archive, but I haven't found a
problem matching this one.

I've used Office 2000 Professional for some years on Windows XP Home. I
am now transferring everything to a new computer with Windows XP Home
SP2. All apparently installs OK. Excel, Access and Powerpoint seem to
run OK.

Word works fine with some files. With other files, just typing a single
character is enough to crash it. There is no identifiable common factor
to the files that trigger the crash, such as all using the same
template. They are very simple - just text, no drawings, macros etc. I
can open them with Open Office, so they are not terminally corrupted.
Newly created files seem to be OK.

So far it seems to be about 40% of files OK, 60% trigger a crash -
enough to render Word unusable for me.

Suggestions - please!!

 

[garfield-n-odie]

Have you tried using the Open and Repair option? Use Windows
Explorer or My Computer to make a copy of the Word file that you
have problems with. Then, in Word, click on File | Open, browse
to your copy of the file, click on the little black
downward-pointing triangle at the right end of the Open button,
and choose Open and Repair.

 

[Stephen Poley]

Have you tried using the Open and Repair option?

No such option available in my copy of Word, I'm afraid. Is it something
that must be installed separately or is it new since Office 2000?

 

[garfield-n-odie]

Sorry, I misunderstood and thought you were using Office 2003 on
your new computer with Windows XP. If you are using the OEM
printer driver that came with your printer or the printer driver
that comes with WinXP, you might check the printer manufacturer's
website for a newer WinXP-compatible driver for your printer. If
that doesn't help, then try working through the troubleshooting
steps at http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm
..

 

[Stephen Poley]

Sorry, I misunderstood and thought you were using Office 2003 on
your new computer with Windows XP. If you are using the OEM
printer driver that came with your printer or the printer driver
that comes with WinXP, you might check the printer manufacturer's
website for a newer WinXP-compatible driver for your printer.

I don't quite understand why you suggest that. Surely the printer driver
only comes into play when one does a print (or maybe print preview)?
After all, one can use Word on a computer without a printer.

How does one find out the date of the installed printer driver? I can't
find it in the printer properties.

Anyway, the latest driver available from HP is dated december 2001. I
used the driver that came with XP SP2, and surely XP SP2 won't ship with
a driver older than that. Or will it?

If
that doesn't help, then try working through the troubleshooting
steps at http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm

I'd already been through that, but none of the cases seems to match my
situation. I can edit (and indeed print) *some* files normally.

Any other suggestions?

 

[garfield-n-odie]

Word relies more heavily than most other applications on
information from the printer driver to lay out and repaginate
text on the screen. I'm not sure exactly what is causing the
problem you're experiencing. I offered some suggestions that
have worked for other people in the past, but you dismissed them
all out of hand without trying them, so I wish you well in your
future endeavors.

 

[Stephen Poley]

Word relies more heavily than most other applications on
information from the printer driver to lay out and repaginate
text on the screen.

OK. So how do I find out what the date is of the installed driver?

I'm not sure exactly what is causing the
problem you're experiencing. I offered some suggestions that
have worked for other people in the past, but you dismissed them
all out of hand without trying them, so I wish you well in your
future endeavors.

I'm baffled by that response. I went to the page you offered (in fact I
already had done so before my original post, but I rechecked it in
answer to your post), and found the following headings:

1. If ... all Office applications quit without an error message as soon
as they open (that isn't my problem).

2. If Word crashes as soon as it opens (that isn't my problem).

3. If Word opens very slowly (that isn't my problem).

4. If you get an error message as soon as Word opens, but it doesn't
crash (that isn't my problem).

And finally: "If none of these fixes help, please post with full details
to the Application Errors newsgroup." Which is what I am doing.

So which solutions were you actually suggesting? Why the need to get
huffy?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The fact is that these are general troubleshooting steps for all kinds of
problems in opening, closing, and using Word because most such problems are
caused by Normal.dot, the Registry, add-ins, or the printer driver. If you
start Word with the /a switch, can you use it without crashing? If not, have
you *tried* deleting and reinstalling the printer?

 

[Stephen Poley]

The fact is that these are general troubleshooting steps for all kinds of
problems in opening, closing, and using Word because most such problems are
caused by Normal.dot, the Registry, add-ins, or the printer driver.

OK - in that case could you get the page clarified so that it actually
says that? If it was clear that these were worth trying in all sorts of
situations (not just the ones given in the headings), then I would have
tried them immediately, before posting here.

It appears that my problem was caused by a corrupt registry key.
(Somewhat worrying that that should happen on a first install on a new
computer, but still ...) Thanks for the assistance.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I have been lobbying to get that article updated, but that's up to the
article's authors.