word hangs

[betty]

Please help! All of a sudden, for no known reason, Word
would just started to hang as soon as I tried to type or
click inside the document (new or existing); the "spinning
beach ball" going round and round forever. After endless
Force Quits, I tried dumping the
Home/Library/Preferences/microsoft.com/plist (as someone
suggested), but no change.

Is this a compatibility issue with Mac and Word? One other
thing, I did notice that when I Force Quit, the icon that
appears in the Force Quit box is normal, but next to it
"Word" appears in red type (normally it is white or blue,
depending on whether or not it has been selected).
Please help.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Betty,

Mac and Word are completely compatible, so that's not it; but there could be
numerous reasons for such a hang. Start out with some basic troubleshooting
procedures and keep posting back if they don't help.

1) You didn't give your OS and Word version numbers (please always do!).
So first make sure you have Word/Office fully updated. Check here:
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/download/>

2) Repair disk permissions:

For OS 10.2.x or 10.3:
Go to Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities. Open up Disk Utility. Select
your hard disk, then click the First Aid tab. Click the button to "Repair
Disk Permissions".

For OS 10.1.5:
Download the Repair Privileges utility, free from Apple, and run it:
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106900>

3) Test your Normal Template: Quit Word and navigate to your Normal
template which should be in /Applications/Microsoft Office X/Templates/.
Rename Normal to something else (like OldNormal), then relaunch Word. If
this fixes the problem but you have customizations, etc, in OldNormal that
you want to maintain, you can use Organizer to transfer those from OldNormal
to the newly-created Normal template. Then you can trash the old renamed
file. To learn how to use Organizer, see here (use IE not Safari to view
this site): <http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/MacWordNormalTemplate.htm>

If this doesn't fix the problem, quit Word again, trash the new Normal and
rename OldNormal back to Normal.

4) Test your Preference files: Quit *all* Office Applications.
Navigate to your ~/library/preferences/Microsoft folder. Rename the
Microsoft Component Preferences, Word Settings (10), and Microsoft Office
Settings (10) files. When you restart Word, these files will be recreated.
If all is well, you can trash the old files. You will have to reset some
Preferences and AutoCorrect settings.

If this doesn't help, you can trash the new files and rename the old ones
back.

5) Check for duplicate or corrupt fonts:
<http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=313535>

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>

 

[Stephen]

Please help! All of a sudden, for no known reason, Word
would just started to hang as soon as I tried to type or
click inside the document (new or existing); the "spinning
beach ball" going round and round forever. After endless
Force Quits, I tried dumping the
Home/Library/Preferences/microsoft.com/plist (as someone
suggested), but no change.

Is this a compatibility issue with Mac and Word? One other
thing, I did notice that when I Force Quit, the icon that
appears in the Force Quit box is normal, but next to it
"Word" appears in red type (normally it is white or blue,
depending on whether or not it has been selected).
Please help.

Betty,

Try deleting Word from your system and reloading it. If that doesn¹t work
try reloading the system software (which takes ages, so wait until you have
time on your hands...)

Stephen

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Betty,

Try deleting Word from your system and reloading it. If that doesn¹t work
try reloading the system software (which takes ages, so wait until you have
time on your hands...)

Stephen

Reloading software is pretty extreme...before you go that far, see this page
for some Troubleshooting suggestions:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/WordXTroubleshooting.htm

There is no inherent incompatibility between Mac and Word--it should work
smoothly.

DM