Word TOC Help Desperately Needed

[Tom Cornell]

After several weeks and many hours of attempting to use Word v.X, I
remain convinced that this is a very poor piece of software and in most
ways grossly inferior to Word 5.1a. Just to start with, it is bloatware
and very slow in comparison to Word 5.1a running on this same machine
under OS9. It's about like using 5.1a on a Mac with a Pre-PPC 25 MHz
CPU. There are excessive repaginations that make you sit and wait when
changing view mode. Word 5.1a allowed you to manually repaginate, and
once that was done, you could readily switch between Normal, Print
Preview and Page layout modes. One would expect that native software
would run faster. Yet, Word v.X is actually slower than Word 5.1a on a
PPC for which it is not native.

My biggest gripe involves compiling a table of contents. Those who have
done it know you can use Heading styles, and this works fine. But, if
you use the TC fields described by Word's Help file and elsewhere, you
get very inconsistent behavior. Sometimes, Word can find these
entries. Other times when you attempt to compile a table of contents
you will get "Error! No Table of contents entries found."

Earlier today, Word was able to find these entries just fine. There are
roughly 3400 such entries in my 700-page document. Now, using exactly
the same procedure about five times, I got the error message for no good
reason. I've changed nothing in the document except delete the table of
contents I compiled earlier. This has been going on occasionally during
the frustrating weeks I've been using Word v.X.

My procedure is consistent. I select Index and Tables from the Insert
Menu. Once the dialog box appears, I select the Tables of Contents
tab. Then, I click the Options button. There, I select the two styles
in which I have TC entries and also the TOC level that belongs to each.
At the same time, I delete the three Headings styles (1,2,3) I don't
need. Then, I click on Table Entry Fields block and click OK to close
the options box. In the Table of Contents preview window, I
consistently see the two entry styles appear and the Heading styles
disappear. Then, I click OK to close the box and tell Word to compile
the Table of Contents. Normally, I see messages at the bottom of the
window indicating repagination and building of the Table of Contents.
There are about three passes through the document, and the TOC appears
nicely. Now, for no apparent reason, I am getting this useless and
incorrect error message again.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? Please don't waste your time
and mine by saying look at the Help file. I've read it again and again,
and the answer is not there. I've also consulted several books on
Office and Word, including those written by Microsoft, and the answer is
not there either.

Word 5.1a never gave me these problems, and I sure do regret it was not
simply recompiled to work under OS9 or OS X. It does run correctly
under OS9.0 and 9.0.4 but not later versions.

 

[Tom Cornell]

Essentially, I am dead in the water until this problem can be resolved.
I've tried numerous more times and gotten the same result. If I copy part
of the document to another file, Word picks out the table of contents items
without fail.

On occasion, I get a notice that "Word has insufficient memory. You will
not be able to undo this actioon once it is completed, Do you want to
continue?

I've built a table of contents using the Heading styles, and that even
failed once. Otherwise, it works.

BTW, I have 512 Meg of memory in this G4. I also tried using Word 2001
under the Classic mode as well as booted up in OS9.2.2 and got the same
result. By now, I could have compiled several dozen tables of contents
using Word 5.1a with no complaints. What is wrong with this "new and
improved" version?

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

It sounds as though it's only this document giving you problems?

Maybe the document is corrupt?

The first way to check for a corrupt document is to
copy the entire thing, *excluding* the last paragraph mark, into a new
document. That last paragraph mark (click on ¶ to show marks) holds a lot of
information which can get corrupted, and copying the text into a document
with a fresh one keeps your formatting, but can fix some glitches. For a
700-page document, you could also try doing this by section.

See this link for further info:

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm

People are using Word X to produce some very long documents, so I don't
*think* there's anything inherently incompatible with the TC fields. It is
slower for long documents, however, you're right about that (hearsay, I'm on
OS 9 myself). By the way, if you bought Office X after January 6, you are
eligible for an almost free upgrade to Office 2004, which has many more of
the kinks worked out (hearsay). Check mactopia.com for details.

There is a 100-page magnum opus written by a user just like us on making
Word cooperate, and inspired (I believe) by the move from Word 5.1a to Word
2001, which you may find helpful. Clive Huggan's Bend Word to Your Will,
which you can find from here: http://word.mvps.org/index.html

DM

 

[Tom Cornell]

Thanks, Dayo,

Maybe there is a solution for me. I've already copied my document by pieces
into another one several times. Hopefully, I can do it one more time without
messing up the headers and footers. I have turned off fast save.

Frankly, Word 5.1a looks even better now having read your letter and some of
the linked pages.

Today, I tried doing a table of contents on the same document with four
different versions of Word: Word v.X, Word 2001, Word 98 and Word 2000 (PC).
The result in each case was the same.... no table of contents entries found. I
was almost beginning to wonder if there was a limit to the number of entries.
I did chop the document in half, and that worked. It made me wonder if I was
exceeding some memory limit. However, I was able to compile an index using
Word v.X with no problem, and that should take a lot more computer resources
than a darn old table of contents. Sure would like to know why a table of
contents is so much fussier than an index!

It would be nice if M$ read these newsgroups and decided to fix some of these
problems.

Sure hope your hint works as I was running out of ideas very quickly!!

 

[Tom Cornell]

Dayo,

After spending most of my evening trying to copy parts of my document into a fresh
one, I realized why I didn't want to do that. I had tried it before and finally
got a message saying I had made too many edits and to save my work. Of course I
did that, but then I found out the edit count or whatever was not reset. As I
attempted to add more of my document, Word would finally accept no more. Then, I
found that my headers and footers were gone. Saving the document under another
title did not work nor did turning off the fast save feature before saving.

This time, I got to about page 350 of 500+ pages of text before this happened.
I've forgetten when it happened the last time. To add insult to injury, my
version of StuffIt (7.0, I think) would not expand that long document you referred
me to.

So, at this point, I have to conclude you can't get there from here. Word 5.1a
is so superior to this that I regret spending more than $1000 to upgrade to
something faster???

My already low opinion of Microsoft is far lower yet.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Not that I mean to claim you should have a high opinion of MS, but your
difficulties really sound like a document problem rather than a program
problem, since it happens in all 4 versions.

The Corrupt Doc link I cited does have other suggestions than paste without
paragraph marks. I don't think you should conclude it's a lost cause yet.
Also, I will try to alert more expert people to your cause.

Try Saving as Webpage and then saving it back to Word. The roundtrip
through HMTL can lose some corruption.

Too many edits occurs when the Undo list gets too long for Word to hold onto
and it hits its maximum on temporary files, you can clear that problem by
simply closing and reopening the file, which erases all the temporary files.
(sorry, I know the paste w/o para marks thing is a hassle. Try it first
simply with entire document, then only at section breaks).

OR Try breaking up the doc (pasting w/o paragraph marks) into several new
documents to get rid of the corruption, then try joining them. If you really
need this doc in X, and joining the files doesn't work, there are some tools
for building TOCs across files.

You should have "allow fast saves" unchecked permanently, on all documents.

Putting "limits for Word" into Help returns some info on limits, but I can't
quite tell whether any apply to you.

I'm staying in OS 9 until people say they are happy with Office 2004. And
Word 5.1a definitely still has its fan club. These newsgroups are not at all
a reliable way to report problems--MS doesn't monitor them--but I find
submitting numerous feedback reports relieves the frustration a tad. And
they made that easier with X, use Send Feedback under the Help menu.

Really reaching with the below, b/c it really sounds like a corrupt
document, and you haven't even fully tested that theory yet...

If you think the entire program may be problematic, not just the document,
you could try renaming the Normal template and the Prefs file (at
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/ folder (the one in your user account)) and
deleting the Word Font Cache and the Carbon Registration Database. One at a
time, probably, to isolate the problem. Apparently all of them can get
corrupted and all will be recreated on launch--rename Normal and Prefs
because you will want to name them back and keep the customizations if
nothing changes.

I assume you have updated Office--there are 10.1.2, 10.1.4, and 10.1.5
patches.

Dayo

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Some further thoughts re approach...

So, at this point, I have to conclude you can't get there from here. Word
5.1a
is so superior to this that I regret spending more than $1000 to upgrade to
something faster???

My already low opinion of Microsoft is far lower yet.

Well, in that case, you shouldn't let MS Word defeat you! You have problems
with one document, probably caused because the file structures between Word
5.1a and X are very different, and probably exacerbated by you doing things
that actually aren't best practice, in a very complicated document, because
you didn't start off saying "I need to figure out how this program works".
Since you have switched over to OS X in general, you are probably best off
if you learn to deal with and control Word instead of letting it frustrate
you. You paid that much for X, you might as well get full value out of it.
It sounds as though you actually need a word processor as powerful as Word,
if you are producing 500+ page documents, so learn to make it work *for*
you. Then producing documents in Word becomes a victory.

Once we get your doc sorted (which should be entirely possible), I'll point
you more towards that.

Dayo

 

[Tom Cornell]

Hi, Dayo,

No, I haven't given up. Today, I had a bit of success. I lopped off the last
sections of my document and attempted a TOC each time. Eventually, I got back
far enough it worked. Then, I tried your suggestion of adding the document back
in a section at a time. That's when that worthless warning appeared again:"Too
many edits in the document. This operation will be incomplete. Save your
work."

As before, I immediately saved it and tried again. No go. The last time, I
also saved it with a diferent name, and that didn't work either. It's almost as
if the history of the document gets written in there and cannot be removed.

At work, I have both a Mac G4 and a PC with Word 2000. I managed to find a USB
ZIP drive so I could move the file to the PC and opened both the original and
now working portion with the Word 2000. When I attempted to copy an additional
section, that miserable message appeared once again.

The "Bend Word" document apparently got corrupted (too) in my download, and I
succeeded in getting it today. It's interesting reading but does not seem to
pertain to my problem very well.

Save as html is one thing I've not tried yet, and it looks like I better give it
a try. I sure hope I don't have to rebuild all my headers and footers, but that
would be minor compared to the misery I've had so far.

Fast save is turned OFF in all versions of Word I have or will be. I got the
message there, and I agree that it saves very little time. If it corrupts the
document, then it's worse than worthless.

Interestingly, in spite of the apparent corruption in my document (a long family
history, BTW), I was able to compile an index. It's very strange that the index
can be built but a TOC cannot. It's clear the TC items that are the main
problem. If I attempt to compile a TOC inlcuding the heading formatted items, I
get a quick "Error! No table of contents items found." One work-around would be
to forget the TC fields and convert them to XE. If I prefaced them all with ZZ,
they would end up at the end of the index and not too much trouble to filter
out.

Until today, I was not sure which version of Word v.X I had. It is 10.1.4. I
downloaded the 10.1.5 update after seeing that. It's installed at work but not
here yet. From the description, there is nothing in there for Word.

The story on the TOC is more complicated than I mentioned. In the Word 5.1a
version, it's a family data base with name, ID code, dates of birth and death,
father's name, his ID and spouse's name (plus page no.). I could find no way to
retain the formatting of these lines of data which made them worthless or way
too much work to fix, so I deleted everything except the ID code. The original
information is in an Excel document, and all I have to do is pair up the TOC I
create from Word with the database information. As along as I remember to keep
both up to date, the pairing up process should be very simple.

Realize that in Word 5.1a, each data line could be right with the paragraph
about the person, and all I had to do was turn on hidden text to edit it. I
sorted the lines out as a TOC and then put them in Excel to process and sort
alphabetically. Now, I have to jump through additional hoops became M$
"improved" Word.

Perhaps you know that the Page Layout and Print Preview modes in Word 5.1a get
broken past Mac OS9.0.4. You get constant repaginations in either just to
advance a page. Luckily, this is a 400 MHz G4 AGP model, and I have the luxury
of running that old OS version as well as OS X. If you take a look at the specs
for faster machines, you will find out that anything past 500 MHz requires OS9.1
or later. I've got a 1.25 GHz upgrade sitting unused at present until I
detemine I can live with OS X.

Thanks so very much for sticking with me. Hopefully, the solution will be found
before too many more frustrating hours go by.

 

[Tom Cornell]

Dayo,

You're not going to believe this, or maybe you will. I was all set to do battle
with Word this evening. I thought I'd extract the protion off the end of my
document that was causing the problem. I chopped off the front part that worked
earlier and, just for fun, tried to compile a table of contents for the remnant
that was supposedly the culprit. Well, darned if I didn't get a perfectly fine
TOC! Nor arugments, no threatening error messages, etc. It showed up without
fanfare. I had to blink my eyes and look twice to believe what was there in front
of me. I even included the section break between the front and back parts, and
that caused no problem. What is strange is that I tried something like this before
and got nowhere. Maybe I just didn't do it with the care I did this time. Perhaps
I should repeat it and see it the same thing happens. I have the possibly corrupt
document on a CDROM where it can't get changed.

So, I guess tomorrow, I will put the whole thing together -- assuming the too many
edits message does not appear -- and see what happens. I split the document up
thinking that maybe I exceeded some magic number of TC entries although I sure
haven't seen any such thing in print.

Got any explanations? I do still need to know for sure how to avoid the too many
edits message. Your suggestions make sense, and I instinctively tried just what
you said. Now, I have to try them and see for sure that they work.

Also, for some reason, that "Bend Word" document was readable on this computer
without downloading it again. Gremlins maybe?! This time, I did expand it with
whatever StuffIt version came with OS X. Maybe that was the difference. I do have
StuffIt Deluxe 8.0 for OS X and will install it.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Gremlins...I always believe in computer gremlins.

Sounds like progress, hope it all works out.

To avoid the "too many edits" problem, close your document every so often
(before too many edits comes up). Closing it will clear the Undo list. I
believe it's called the 60 Saves bug, so maybe close and re-open the doc
every 30 changes or so? There is a template you can install that will clear
the temporary files for you instead, if you stick with X.

Apparently, by the way, deleting a TOC can also lead to corruption, so
apparently it is better not to (sorry, don't have any more details).
Preferable to simply update it. It's conceivable that your entire doc isn't
actually corrupt, that the TOC field is simply becoming confused. Will you
post the TOC field and some examples (not 3400 of your TC fields to the
NG (with field codes showing, obviously)?

I would suggest combining the pieces into a fresh document, without the
partial TOC fields that you have created along the way, by the way.

Dayo

 

[Tom Cornell]

Dayo,

My experiments today did not go well. The "too many edits" message came up again
and again. I saved the two parts of the document as RTFs and then opened them
again in Word X. As soon as I tried to paste the second section in the first,
there was that nasty message.

Saving as html completely reorganized the footnotes and made them endnotes. I have
not tested reading the file back into Word. Instead, I opened it with Safari.
Perhaps I need to use Word X. The RTF did lose the header and footer.

Moving the RTFs to the ZIP disc, I then tried my old 300 MHz Beige G3/DT with Word
5.1a (Should have said I have 1 PC and 2 Macs.). The smaller part caused Word 5.1a
to crash. The larger file never would load even though I expanded the memory
assigned to Word. It reached about 55%, stopped loading and then gave me the "Too
many edits" message.

A typical TC entry looks like {TC "10ABCDE"\l 9}. This is in the "ID Code"
style. After choosing Options from the Table of Contents menu, I click Table entry
fields and enable the "ID Code" style as TOC Level 9 and de-select Headings 1, 2
and 3 which are selected by default. Then I close the Option menu and click OK in
the Table of Contents menu after seeing the Headings styles diasppear from the
preview window and be replaced by "ID Code." (What the code means is a 10th
generation individual who is the 5th child of the 4th child of the 3rd child,
etc.) Following the backslash is the small letter L.

This will generate a TOC line such as:

10ABCDE 22

assuming the above TC item is on page 22. These items follow directly after the
paragraph describing the person and are on a separate line. The following carriage
return acts as the space between the paragraph and what follows. Most of the ID
codes start with a number between 1 and 14. A smaller number start with a "*."
These are for unknowns, people who have not been connected to the known family. I
typed the above TC code from memory and hope I got it right. I'm in OS9 at the
moment, and will boot into OS X after I get done with my e-mail. Some families
have several ID codes. If children did not marry, or we don't know of any
children, their codes follow their father's in the same line. When they were on
separate lines, of course, I got extra spaces which I didn't want.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Hi Tom,

Okay, a person at MS will check out your document to try to figure out what
is wrong, go ahead and email it to him. (e-mail address removed) I
think is the best address (Mike Sampson). Include a little bit of intro,
but he can review this thread so you don't need to type it all over again.

If the email doesn't go through, post back.

Dayo

 

[Tom Cornell]

The problem has been solved. In a word, it's bookmarks. These are hidden marks in
the document connecting one page to another. When a table of contents is compiled,
for example, clicking on the page numbers will take you to that page. Word is
limited to a bit over 16,000 of these. When that number is exceeded, problems crop
up when you attempt to expand the document, especially if any bookmarks are
included. The solution is to clear them out.

This evening, I took the two parts of my problem document which would always give
me the message "Too many edits..." if I tried to add anything containing
bookmarks. Adding text without them was no problem. Once I cleared the bookmarks
-- and there were more than 16,000 of them in my main document -- I was able to
copy in quite a number of additional pages. Then, wonder of wonders, I was able to
compile a table of contents on the combined document.

This was not a case of corruption at all. Yet to be determined is whether these
bookmarks came in the transfer from Word 5.1a or if they were the result of my
tests of compiling a TOC or both.

My document is quite large, something around 600 pages. If you are working on
anything containing many TC fields or items in Heading styles, this problem could
bite you, too. Thankfully, I was able to find someone with the right answer. They
are right here in this newsgroup.

MacTom

 

[Matthew Winslow]

How did you get 16000 bookmarks in only 600 pages?

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Tom, very glad to hear you solved it, but I was also wondering how you got
so many bookmarks? Did you actually need 16000, between TOC and index
entries, or were there extraneous unnecessary duplicates floating around,
for whatever reason?

Dayo