Microsoft Office Word crashes using Lion

Ditto

Buggerlugs61,

if you want to read the full story about these crashes, and the (simple) workarounds I have found, here it is :

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/102808/Word_crashes_summary.pdf

- first solution : deactivate TM

- second solution : installing Office (or simply Word) on another partition of the same disk, what allows to keep both TM & Word autosave functionalities working at the same time without conflict.

(original article was written some time ago for a french Mac user magazine, but I have translated it into english for the present post...)

Tell me if you find it useful!

duSchmoll

Hello. I've spent 2 months now trying all the "fixes" either Mac-based or Microsoft. I'm pretty sure I have now tried them all with no luck; so here goes:

Problem? "Microsoft Word (or Excel or PPT) has encountered a problem and needs to close" appears immediately on opening/crashing all MS documents.

If log in as another user on the same Macbook Pro (10.8.2) there is no problem - so the issue must be with my Mac?. Yes, I have done a complete remove of Office for Mac 2011, Time Machine off, Disc Utilities, Font removal etc, etc. and the multiple other suggestions in this forum and in others.

Has anyone updated to version 14.3.2 which should have fixed the problems? I succeded in updating from 14.0.0 to 14.1.0 and then to 14.3.2. So fare no problems. But haven´t worked on heavy documents with references yes. I will post later this week.

Today, My Macbook Pro (new) with the latest version of Lion began crashing out of any MS Office ap I open. Here is a log from the latest crash:

Microsoft Error Reporting log version: 2.0

Error Signature:

Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS

Date/Time: 2013-04-13 18:40:36 +0000

Application Name: Microsoft Word

Application Bundle ID: com.microsoft.Word

Application Signature: MSWD

Application Version: 14.3.2.130206

Crashed Module Name: ATS

Crashed Module Version: unknown

Crashed Module Offset: 0x0000fe76

Blame Module Name: mbukernel

Blame Module Version: 14.3.2.130206

Blame Module Offset: 0x00003ade

Application LCID: 1033

Extra app info: Reg=en Loc=0x0409

Crashed thread: 0

I'm working on an assignment for my doctorate, it's due Monday, and I can't even open the stupid file now. Is it just me or does Microsoft's latest version of Lions seem to be buggier than Windows? Wish Jobs was still here - he wouldn't stand for this crap.

Hi,

I also had my MS Word file repeatedly crash when I tried to insert captions. It would be at random like inserting a Table caption is ok and then the Figure one would cause a crash. I don't know if this will work 100% but I've found that putting a few line spaces above and below the figure/picture before inserting the caption prevents my file from crashing. I've been crash free for one week!

Regardless, I still save the file right before I insert the caption. Just in case...

Well shoot. I have just spent about an hour reviewing all 8 pages of this discussion and am not sure if there has been a solution or not. I am here to tell you that this problem still is going on as of this date (September 2013). My husband is a writer and has to work with comments with his editor and has had some really serious set backs because of this issue and I told him I'd try to solve it for him. I think I've bitten off more than I can chew. Suggestions seems to range from scrap Word and use Open Office to turning off balloons and time machine, etc. What is the latest - have any of these really worked? Yikes. I feel my #%* is on the line because I talked my husband into switching from a PC to Mac this last December. We love our Mac but this is such a major issue for anyone who is a professional writer. I'm feeling discouraged before I even begin.

As its name suggests Word is a Microsoft Product, have you tried asking the manufacturer for help with their product?

Generally I find all MS products quite dreadful in use (except Excel)

Hi Csound1,

Reading all the other posts leaves me doubtful of getting help from MS but you have a good point. I love Pages but my husband says he has to use Word because of his publisher. I'm wondering if switching large documents (100,000 words) back and forth between Pages and Word is an option or if it would be too risky. In other words, he could work in Pages and then switch to Word and then when the publisher sends comments and track changes can he just switch it back into Pages again?

I can't answer that for definite but I see no reason why it shouldn't work, all I can say is give it a try.

Have you attempted to find out what is wrong with your installation of Word, at all?

And remember, Nothing is Risky if you keep current backups. But everything is if you do not.

I've done this, and it works, but I wouldn't advise it if there are complicated things like citations and figures. The field codes can get messed up.

Hi Cecarr,

I've just tried this (sent the document to iCloud and then downloaded it as Pages) and all the track changes were gone. Maybe I did this wrong or there is a better way to do it. I was just about to go to other discussions to see if this can be done. So far, no luck.

Why did you send it to iCloud, just open it in Pages (you do have a copy of Pages on your Mac I am assuming)

FYI

I use Word 2007 occasionally, expressly because of the Review features it possesses (comment, track changes etc) They only work in Word as far as I can tell.

The obvious answer to the problem is to Fix Word. (I dislike the Mac versions intensely, they s**k so bad that I use Word 2007 on a cheap Windows box and remote to it from my Mac). Word on Windows works the way it should, reliably and the files save to my local machine (Mac) when I save, exactly as they would if I used Word 2008 or 2011 (I use 2011 on my Mac for checking the final output if I have to)

Have to say that at this specific task a $100 used PC and an old copy of Word is far superior to anything MS offer for the Mac.

Tara --

Did you open up Font Book and check for duplicate fonts yet?

Dear Csound1,

Well don't I feel a bit stupid! I am fairly new to Mac and didn't realize I could open the Word document from within Pages. That's great and it all looks good. So now I am wondering why everyone can't just do this. I guess it makes me suspicious that I'll find some reason why this isn't the best way to solve this problem.

I am glad to know your solution - this is probably a stupid question too but how to you "remote" to your Mac? That sounds useful.

Thanks so much for your help.

Tara