word 2008 freezes

Make sure you have the latest update from http://www.microsoft.com/mac/

Make sure your hard disk isn't too full (85% typically is the safe limit most people have found).

Make sure that any updates you do are followed by a repair permissions in Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility.

Was there ever a time there was no issue with Word 2008?

Yeah it behaves as badly as the programs from 15 years ago. You almost have to manually save items once in a while since the automatic recovery mode also does not always work. I publish manuscripts with multimedia so I presume I am more prone to these problems. I read somewhere that Word 2011 solved the crashing problem although I am skeptical that this company can get their act together.

Might look into NeoOffice...

http://www.neooffice.org/

Or Open Office...

http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/index.html

Thanks I will try them when I get a chance.