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Microsoft Office Word crashes using Lion

Has anyone had so many crashes and freezes with Word/Office 2011 with the latest version of Lion running a Macbook Pro (or other Apple devices) that they finally reverted back to Snow Leopard and Office 2008? Every other solution failed and destroyed my ability to work. Apple even ran a three-day diagnostic, found nothing but gave me a new computer and reinstalled Office 2011. The crashes in Word continued for every reason mentioned on this site: when trying to save, trying to cut and paste, trying to add a comment, working in track changes, freezing for no reason, randomly turning off the auto save function so that an afternoon's work is lost, randomly turning off the auto-back function so that there's no document retrieval. Crashing when Power Point is open; crashing when Excel is open; crashing when working in a complex document with multiple comments; crashing in a one page document when trying to move two sentences.


I've worked with both Apple, Microsoft and my personal IT guy and documented all of this. No one has found a fix. Every update was in place and patches.


Conclusion: Office 11/Word and Lion are incompatible. If it was just Office, then users who went back to 2008 and still used Lion wouldn't have experienced the same kind of crashes. There are numerous user reports.


In a final attempt to salvage the expensive investment in the computer (purchased in Nov. 2011) and efforts to make it work, we turned back the clock, scrubbed Lion and Office 11, installed the latest version of Snow Leopard and Office 2008. Please let me know if this has worked for you. Thanks.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Jul 13, 2012 11:00 PM

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131 replies

Jul 14, 2012 7:36 AM in response to WordCrash Expert

WordCrash Expert wrote:


Thanks, have done that with Apple performing it. Check out Microsoft sites and you'll see many stories about the inability to solve crashes when running Lion and Office 2011. The problem seems to largely occur when working in Word documents with lots of comments and track changes.

5 Macs all running Lion and MS Office for Mac 2011, never a hiccup. Must be something on your end. Try not to make silly conclusions. never heard of the problem, except if you are running some kind of third party program, maybe MacKeeper or Anti-Virus rubbish.


Good Luck


Pete

Jul 14, 2012 7:52 AM in response to petermac87

Wish it was a silly conclusion. Ive spent months trying to sole this. Not running any weird third party programs. It's hard to draw any other conclusion since no Lion or Microsoft updates or patches resolve the crashes. Check out Microsoft sites and you'll find users with similar experiences. They typically are working in Word documents with multiple track changes and comments. No one has posted a solution. The problems didnt occur when I used Snow Leopard and 2008. Folks running 2008 and Lion report cashes.

Jul 14, 2012 8:21 AM in response to petermac87

Not sure how denial applies since ive spent months working with both Apple and Microsoft. Hundreds on attempted fixes. Hours on Support sites. Applied every Microsoft update and they acknowledges continuing crash problems as recently as yesterday. If there's a fix out there for writers working in complex Word documents, please tell us.

Jul 14, 2012 8:44 AM in response to WordCrash Expert

WCE ---


Have you checked your Font Book application for duplicate fonts? I really do think there's something else going on there.


petermac -- there are many ways to interact with posters here. One is to try to make them feel stupid for having the problem or drawing conclusions that don't fit your world , and another is to sympathize and offer support. Just sayin'.

Jul 14, 2012 1:16 PM in response to WordCrash Expert

This may be a niche problem that affects a sub set of users. I don't see it since I don't have very complex Word docs open. I and several others did have massive email problems with their 14.2.2,release and they just fixed it last week for me but others still have Outlook 2011 issues.


I think there are enough anomalies between MS Office 2011 and Lion that many who go well beyond basic usage find things that most others don't experience. The good news is Microsoft appears to be actively addressing them.


JAy

Jul 25, 2012 8:21 AM in response to WordCrash Expert

I too am having great problems. I am trying to write a book with illustrations. I am up to page 180. The program keeps quitting sometimes with an error message stating a media problem. Although I have installed a new hard drive it continues. The program hangs and I lose all my work since starting the session. I have autosave checked but to no avail. I have the latest updates etc and am not running unorthodox programs.


All I can do is to 'save as' every 5mins. Thank God for Time Machine.


I would welcome any suggestions.


David Thomas

Aug 18, 2012 6:37 AM in response to WordCrash Expert

Seems to be an incompatibility between Lion Time Machine and the Autosave function of Microsoft Word :

I am running OSX Lion and now Mountain Lion, Microsoft office 2011 including all latest updates, and this happens on my MBP 13" when working on large Word documents 20~45 Mo (no problem on small documents, don't ask me why !) I have had several crashes causing major disk errors, what even corrupted my TM back-up. It started by the impossibility to save the document (supposed to be "used by another application..."), and ask to save it under another name, then tells it follows by another error "it is impossible to save on the disk because of the disk is corrupted...", then it deletes the original document and corrupt the Autosave temporary file, and finally crashes with File System damages !

I thought it was really a disk hardware problem, but finally found disk was OK, and that it was the Autosave function of Microsoft Word which was in conflict with Time Machine on the same temporary save of the current document. Now with either Autosave function of the Word document disabled, or Time Machine non active when working on such big Word documents, this has solved my problem.. no more crashes or disk errors.

try it and tell me if that works !


duSchmoll

Microsoft Office Word crashes using Lion

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