OS 10.4 and Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word version 10.1.4 on my Mac.

I don't think there is a version with that number. Mine has Word 2004. I think there's also Word 2008.

Try moving:

Home (or your user name) > Library > Preferences > com.apple.com.microsoft.Word.plist

to the desktop and restart your computer. This file saves the settings for that service and may be come corrupt. Removing it from the Preferences folder will result in a new file being created with default settings. If this helps you can trash the file but you may need to reset other things covered by that preference. If it doesn't help you can replace the newly created file with the old one and restart to regain the old settings.

I have Office 2004 on my Macs with OS 10.4.11, however, the Word version is 11.2.3. Suggest you update to this version. Download the update here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/915057

Cheers, Tom 😉

Word X was (also) sold as part of Office X for Mac. Circa 2002? or so.

If you have to reinstall it, you may have to search for older packages
from the earlier installation, as well as find and remove Application
Support bits in the appropriate Library files. (Don't remember which.)
This would be to remove former bits to get the reinstall to work...
And there may be plist files or places where the serial number and
other stuff gets saved. A utility such as AppZapper (?) may work.

There also is an Uninstaller for Office (and word, presumably) so as
to make a clean or new install possible; or to get rid of it. Could be
there may be an uninstaller on the Word X install disc.

Another option would be to get the newest version of Neo Office;
it runs free & for the most part will do most things Office 2004 can.

Though I have not reinstalled it, my Office X for Mac had Word 10.1.4
installed and these bits of Office had three consecutive updates with
security files of some size, so when re-installing Office or Word, be
sure to get the correct update files for them from MS support. And note
there are some Microsoft page links for Mac products that do not work.

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

It sounds as though you may have two versions of the word application on you mac. When you click on a document the correct one is loaded an works, so a re-install is probably unnecessary. My guess is that when you try to start it yourself you are trying to run a corrupt or broken version

On a similar note, how to I get my Microsoft Word program off of my backup disk and into my newer Power PC. Both my old IMac and my new PowerPC are running 10.4.11 so compatability should not be an issue, but I would like to not have to open Word from my backup drive everytime. Thanks.

beargerr

Just to encourage you, I run Word 10.1.6 in Tiger without the slightest problem, and I shouldn't think that it differs much from your v10.1.4.

Try moving to the desktop a file that Word uses when not launched by a document. I think that will be the file "Normal" which I have in /Applications/MS Office X/Templates. If your "Normal" isn't there you should be able to locate it by looking in Prefs > File Locations.

+BTW I see that in my Templates folder I have, as well as "Normal", a "Normal copy" dated a few years ago. That tells me that I probably had an occasion when "Normal" got corrupted, and I probably made a copy after laboriously re-creating it.+

If that proves futile you could try (a bit laborious) deselecting one or two prefs at a time.


Andreas

For example, the latest build of excel 2008 is 12.1.0

So that's likely office v.x

i dont know the problem yet, but the magic hint is that it works fine when started with a document, btu not without. So what does it do differently?

1. it loads its default prefs, rather than the doc's settings
2. it goes and looks for recent docs and loads them in the menu
3. only after it is booted up does might it display an "open" dialog box ( so that;s not it)

I'd trash my prefs and restart. actually, i would nto trash the word plist file, but rather i would move it to some folder on my desktop so I can put it right back if that;'s nto it).

Your preferences are in "blah.plist" files in user/library/preferences

Hope this helps,

Grant

and onyl one can be the parent of a filetyp[e at one time anyway.