My partner in Vancouver is having an awful time with word and excel documents. Also, we're both having word stability issues.

Vancouver: G4 400Mhz Tower, 700+ ram, 10.3.3, Office X (Word 10.1.4, Excel 10.1.5)

Calgary: G4 400Mhz TiPB, 350+ ram, 10.3.3, Office X (Word 10.1.4, Excel 10.1.5)

#1 WORD NOT SAVING

We have a word doc template to send in reports and another excel document for a different report. In both cases, my partner finds the last document we created (ie the June 15 report named june15.doc) and duplicates the file. He then renames the file (ie June21.doc) and then opens it. He modifies the report information, saves it and then emails it over.

We've noticed that the changes aren't being saved. We're finding that the file was if fact duplicated and the file's name has been changed, but the information in the word document is old (it's the June 15 report, not the June 21 report he entered and saved.)

So far, I've recommended hard saving (using SAVE AS, not save,) repairing the permissions and trashing the preferences. Nothing has helped.

#2 WORD STABILITY

In Calgary (and Vancouver) we've had serious problems with word stability. The program is relatively stable, except when we're using a table in the word document (and almost all our reports use tables.) The table is about 4-6 pages long, 4 columns across. If we added more than 6 sentences, word suddenly crashes and we lose everything. We're forced to save after almost every sentence. On a plain word document, we've never had any issues.

We've tried repairing the permissions and trashing the com.microsoft.word.plist preferences, but nothing has helped.

Can anyone help us out?

Be sure that when you re-name a MS Word file, that you don't highlight the document and re-name it - re-name it by using the "Save As..." command.

Lars - That's exactly what he does. He duplicates the actual file, highlights the file's name and changes it. He then opens the renamed file, enters the data and saves.

Why is this bad?

I think this is bad because MS Word (maybe) thinks its saving to the named document when he re-saves it after entering new document. Example - if it's it called June10.doc, and then re-names it by highlighting and re-names it to June22.doc and enters new data, then saves it, it's possible MS Word thinks its saving it as June10.doc - not June22.doc because it the file name was changed outside of MS Word. Maybe I could be wrong, but does that make sense? Sort of... maybe... tongue.gif

I'm suggesting this because I've had files become corrupted before by highlighting re-naming instead of "Save As..." commanding. Just a thought.

You could try it (not highlighting) and see if it works. Doesn't waste much time to try.

I am using an older version of word and I have found the Save As.. method works very well. I have used this many times over without any problems.


As for the table and stability issue, would it easer to use excel to handle your table. You would just have to use increase the columns width and row heights.

Just some thoughts.

im inclined to think its about the version of office that your using. I haven't had any problems with office. Update might be nice if you already haven't done so.

www.macboy.ca (http://www.macboy.ca)

I agree - Excel would handle the table better. The problem is that I'm filling out a form from someone else. I've asked for them to send over another clean copy (on the assumption that our copy was corrupted in some way.) The other three reps have no issues using the table in word.

As for updates, I've upgraded as much as I can on Office X.
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx#OfficeX

I already downloaded 10.1.5

:( Help

That happened to me once and I figured out that the document itself was damaged. I selected all the text in the document, closed it, opened a new blank document and pasted. Saved the new document with a new name, and trashed the bad document. It happens when the file extent directory is overlapping. The file is fragmented and another file overwrites the end of the file marker. This makes sense, if you keep swapping the same document back and forth.
Norton is very good at fixing this type of damage, but I would rather delete the offending file. It is rare that you actually find the file that cause an overwrite like that.
It doesn't only happen in Word. This can happen to any file that gets changed often and resaved. That is how fragmentation occurs.

Sorry dude... I tried Office 2004 on my Mac, Office 2000 at the office, and Office XP on my home PC and I cannot duplicate your Word problem.