I know Word isn't an Apple product, but I've looked for answers everywhere to no avail. The closest Apple store is an hour away.
Disclaimers aside, Word crashes on me a lot. At least 2-3 times a day. I have no idea why it is crashing on me so frequently when before it never used to, but it's becoming a big problem when I need to take notes for school or am working on large research projects only for it to crash and then NOT recover my work. Here's the latest error report. Any advice would be SO appreciated.
Process: Microsoft Word [13226]
Path: /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Microsoft Word
Identifier: com.microsoft.Word
Version: 100702 (11.6.0)
Code Type: PPC (Translated)
Parent Process: launchd [201]
Interval Since Last Report: 856218 sec
Crashes Since Last Report: 10
Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 270062 sec
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 4
Date/Time: 2010-09-26 02:29:57.748 -0400
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.8 (9L31a)
Report Version: 6
Anonymous UUID: 84356968-BC35-4B19-B627-24E455569DE7
Thread 1: Crashed (0xb7fffacc, 0x7b0a6d02)
0x00000100: /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Support/LaunchCFMApp : + 256
0x8450a748: No symbol
0x8450bb1c: No symbol
0x84509340: No symbol
0x845078c0: No symbol
0x84503410: No symbol
0x84500d80: No symbol
0x8450072c: No symbol
0x84500574: No symbol
0x84500440: No symbol
0x844af354: No symbol
0x844a9494: No symbol
0x844a9324: No symbol
0x841cbb3c: No symbol
0x9475781c: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation : _CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 2972
0x96f36b18: /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.fra mework/Versions/A/HIToolbox : _RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 268
0x96f3693c: /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.fra mework/Versions/A/HIToolbox : _ReceiveNextEventCommon + 416
0x841cb820: No symbol
0x84498d4c: No symbol
0x843c565c: No symbol
0x839d1474: No symbol
0x843c50d8: No symbol
0x84eaee40: No symbol
That is the old PPC version. While it should still run fine, there is an extra layer for potential problems. Have you run any of those horrible programs that try to "clean up" or "save space" by removing things you "don't need"? They only work because, after you reinstall the operating system afterwards, you wind up with more free space available.
Try deleting all of Office from your computer. I think that version includes and uninstaller. Then reinstall it.
Since deleting any and all Microsoft preference files I have in Library > Preferences folder, Word has been behaving. Up until today.
Here's the latest crash report. Suggestions on fixing the problem would be great, as the program has crashed about 4 times tonight.
Process: Microsoft Word [6437]
Path: /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Microsoft Word
Identifier: com.microsoft.Word
Version: 100702 (11.6.0)
Code Type: PPC (Translated)
Parent Process: launchd [67]
Interval Since Last Report: 892728 sec
Crashes Since Last Report: 5
Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 1153872 sec
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 8
Date/Time: 2010-11-07 21:40:02.999 -0500
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.8 (9L31a)
Report Version: 6
Anonymous UUID: 84356968-BC35-4B19-B627-24E455569DE7
Thread 6: Crashed (0xb7fffacc, 0x7b0b5fdf)
0x00000100: No symbol
0x8450a748: No symbol
0x8450bb1c: No symbol
0x84509340: No symbol
0x845078c0: No symbol
0x84503410: No symbol
0x84500d80: No symbol
0x8450072c: No symbol
0x84500574: No symbol
0x84500440: No symbol
0x844af354: No symbol
0x844a9494: No symbol
0x844a9324: No symbol
0x841cbb3c: No symbol
0x9475781c: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation : _CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 2972
0x96f36b18: /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.fra mework/Versions/A/HIToolbox : _RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 268
0x96f3693c: /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.fra mework/Versions/A/HIToolbox : _ReceiveNextEventCommon + 416
0x841cb820: No symbol
0x84498d4c: No symbol
0x843c565c: No symbol
0x839d1474: No symbol
0x843c50d8: No symbol
0x84eaee40: No symbol
I was having the same problem with the same version of Word a couple years ago. After reinstalling and a bunch of troubleshooting, I gave up and tried OpenOffice instead. In my experience, it is worlds above MS Office. You get one application (and it's a completely free download) that can do text documents, spreadsheets, powerpoint-like presentations, and vector drawing. Most of my professors require .doc format when turning in files and Openoffice has the option to save in Office formats, and PDF of course. I don't mean to be the posterchild for them or anything but it honestly is far superior to MS Office in my experience. Their website is
http://www.openoffice.org/ Hope this helps =)