First, see here to make sure you are properly updated.
http://www.mcgimpsey.com/macoffice/office/vxversions.html
Please note that reinstalling Office is highly unlikely to fix anything
unless you have first *un*installed Office by running the Remove Office tool
from the Value Pack on the installation CD.
There are several prefs files that tend to corrupt with Word X. You can quit
Word, delete or rename them, and Word will create new ones on restarting.
If the problem goes away, one of those files was corrupted. You may want to
test them one by one in order to locate the problem properly, so that if it
reoccurs, you know exactly what file to trash.
Four files are in ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft folder (where ~ stands for
your username):
Word Settings (10)
Office Settings (10)
Word Font cache
Carbon Registration Database
You should RENAME rather than delete the Settings files, as if fresh copies
do *not* solve the problem, you can simply trash the newly created settings
file and rename the old one back in order to keep your customizations.
The Normal template is used as a base for new blank documents and to hold
your customizations and as a sort of personal scratch pad for each user. It
too can corrupt. It is kept in Applications/Office/Templates. Again,
RENAME the Normal template to OldNormal, and let Word create a new one. If
the problem goes away with a fresh Normal, you can recover most of your
customizations by opening OldNormal in Word. Then go to Tools | Macros >
Organizer to copy Macros, Styles, and AutoText from OldNormal to new Normal.
You can copy over custom-built toolbars, but not changes you made to
built-in toolbars. Sadly, you cannot recover custom keyboard shortcuts from
OldNormal. (To minimize the effect of a corrupt Normal in the future, you
can keep a global template in the Startup folder to hold all your
customizations). If a new Normal does not solve the problem, simply delete
it and rename OldNormal to Normal.
More info re Normal:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/MacWordNormalTemplate.htm
Other possibilities:
Badly-written add-ins in your Word Startup folder
(Applications/Office/Office/Startup). Quit, remove all add-ins, if problem
goes away, return them one by one until you know which one caused the
problem. Endnote CWYW is particularly troublesome.
Corrupt fonts:
A MS Knowledge Base article that tells you how to troubleshoot fonts:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=313535
You can follow this link for more troubleshooting suggestions, info on what
to backup if you *must* reinstall, and possibly more detailed information on
the procedures above:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm
DM
