Office for mac - Word error message "insufficient memory"??

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Level 1

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Office for mac - Word error message "insufficient memory"??

I'm not sure if I'm in the right help section, so apologies of not and point me in the right direction?

My problem: I copied about 2 pages of text in a Microsoft Word (for mac) document, opened a blank document, and attempted to paste the text there. The text transferred, but when I attempted to save the document Microsoft closed, without saving, and offered to send an error report.

Alternately, I copied the text, closed Word, re-opened it to a blank document, and again attempted pasting the text. This time, an error message pops up that says "Insufficient memory. Save document now." after which it will let me save the document, but won't let me paste anything. So confused.

Thanks for any help!

(I also emptied my trash, just to free up some space and see if that helped, but even though its been ages since I've done it it didn't seem to make a difference.)

Aluminum Macbook, Mac OS X (10.5.8), About a year old.

Posted on May 10, 2010 2:51 PM

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Answer 1

etresoft

Level 8

46,176 points

May 10, 2010 7:29 PM in response to stassy

Make sure you have updated Office. There have been a number of stability fixes.

Try "Paste special" and select a plain text format instead of just "paste".

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Answer 2

stassy Author

Level 1

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May 11, 2010 11:23 AM in response to etresoft

I tried paste special and that method didn't work, it simply said "insufficient memory to perform this operation." I tried copy/pasting it in smaller chunks and it pasted, but Word shut down when I attempted to save.

How exactly do you specifically update Office? I ran software update, but nothing for Office came up.

Just to check if it worked, I opened the original document and selected Save As, and it allowed me to save it under a different name and re-open the doc, and then edit and save it - so I can go ahead with my work, but it would still be good to resolve the issue.

Thank-you for the reply!

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Answer 3

etresoft

Level 8

46,176 points

May 11, 2010 11:37 AM in response to stassy

stassy wrote:
How exactly do you specifically update Office? I ran software update, but nothing for Office came up.

Choose "Check for updates" in the an Office program's Help menu.

Just to check if it worked, I opened the original document and selected Save As, and it allowed me to save it under a different name and re-open the doc, and then edit and save it - so I can go ahead with my work, but it would still be good to resolve the issue.

Hopefully just updating will take care of it. Just remember than an "insufficient memory" error never means insufficient memory. It means the program is buggy. While very powerful, Office is somewhat on the buggy side. It is updated pretty frequently however.

If you continue to have problems, there may be some specific issue that is causing your problem and can be fixed. The best place to investigate that would probably be Microsoft's own support forums.

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Answer 4

stassy Author

Level 1

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May 11, 2010 3:00 PM in response to etresoft

Hmm, unfortunately no updates. This is the first problem I've had since I got the program about a year ago. Thanks for all the suggestions, info, and the link!

Happy computer-ing!

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