Word 2011 - Freezes when pasting text

Microsoft and Apple fixes don't seem to do it

yewborn said:

A quick follow-up, I checked and I have 'smart cut and paste' turned off and still have this problem regularly.

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The freezing problem still seems to occur. I used the solution recommended by Microsoft, mentioned above, to erase office preferences, repair permissions, and delete duplicate fonts. I also installed the OS 10.6.7 font update. These fixes don't seem to have fixed the problem.

Does anyone know of other fixes?

Thanks you guys

What a great resource you guys are! I have Office 2011 (brand new MacAir) and copy/paste is crashing almost all the time (once out of three or four pastes). I have a brand new version and the update wasn't valid as my version was newer than the fix.

What seems to have fixed it was turning off the smart cut/paste. I tried a few test runs and it seems good. We shall see.

I hate freaking Microsoft. If I hadn't been mandated to use it, I'd have been searching for a different option.

This problem continues...

I just switched from PC to a brand new iMac, and I'm trying to use the brand new Word 2011 for Mac that I just installed. I have disabled the smart cut and paste option. I am still hanging just about every time I try to cut/paste from a pdf document. Unbelievable. It looks like I have no options for doing my work, which often involves this type of cutting and pasting across platforms. Simply unreal.

yewborn said:

Does anyone know of other fixes?

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Here is a page that lists standard troubleshooting procedures of all versions of Word/Mac:

Word:mac Troubleshooting

My Solution ...

I have been suffering with this paste and crash issue for years now, and I have at last come across a solution that works for me. I've stopped working with .doc files and now only use .docx files. Since I made this change, I haven't had a single crash.

Bad Bug!

This bug takes the MS cake. Like most of the others here, I am current with everything, but I get the freeze nearly every time I cut and paste with Word 2011, whether I'm copying from outside or within the current document, or whether I'm using paste special unformatted text or just a regular paste. My solution: I've downloaded OpenOffice, and so far so good. I'm doing hard core research papers with lots of formatting, footnotes, cross references, indexes, the works, so i'm hopeful, but a little concerned that this will work. I'd love to say goodbye to MS forever!

micasi said:

My solution: I've downloaded OpenOffice, and so far so good.

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If you would like to try something a bit more advanced, check out:

LibreOffice (free)
Home » LibreOffice

LibreOffice is another branch on the tree of OpenOffice ports to be Mac native. OpenOffice/Mac itself has ended development and just about all the programmers have moved over to the LibreOffice project. LibreOffice has killed off all the other OpenOffice projects for the Mac except for NeoOffice, which is running on a skeleton crew, I hear.

LibreOffice

Great! Will do; thanks for the tip, Randy. I really appreciate it.

Best,

Mic

micasi said:

Great! Will do; thanks for the tip, Randy. I really appreciate it.

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My pleasure!

I've been keeping my ear to the ground to see if someone has come up with a solution to the copy/paste problem with Word, but though a number of people have experienced the problem, there is no definite solution that I can find yet.

Microsoft blames Apple, and Apple blames Microsoft. Microsoft says that when this problem occurs, it isn't being caused by their code. They say that Word goes into a wait state waiting for the system to hand off something that never comes.

There are people who claim to have fixed the problem, but the results aren't repeatable. For instance:
Word freezes when I try to paste content from another application. - Microsoft Answers

Here are a couple of things to try, if you haven't already:

Word menu --> Preferences --> Edit --> Use Smart Cut and
Paste
Try setting it to the setting that it currently *isn't*.

If you are using Snow Leopard, be sure to apply this update from Apple:
Snow Leopard Font Update.
Snow Leopard Font Update

I'll let you know right away if I hear anything new.

Any news about this problem? My solution for now.

I have this annoying problem. I currently work on an MS Word document using my iMac 2.8 GHz intel core i7 (OS 10.6.8) with MS Word 2011 v14.1.3.
In addition to use autorecovery set for every 5 min, I use the Mac screen capture selection to save a picture of the frozen work on the desktop. I save the pic as a pdf file and use the OCR text recognition of Adobe Acrobat to obtain text that was lost and can now be cut-pasted into the recovered word document. At this stage, the cut-paste has not been a problem yet

I'm happy with LibreOffice; no problems so far and I like the user interface. It sure beats having to go through the screen Grab and OCR routine nearly every time I cut and paste: sometimes even when I try to paste the OCR recovered text back into the document.

Thanks for the hint

I might try when I have time. Does LibreOffice work with Endnote?

Hanging Word when pasting

I too am suffering from Word 2011 hanging when pasting. I've lost considerable work and am really frustrated. Does anyone know when Microsoft will fix this issue?

Your guess is as good as anyone's. Microsoft has not even acknowledged that freezing when pasting exists, much less fix it. However, there will be a service pack issued in the near future to address the new features of Lion. In the past Microsoft has fixed bugs they said didn't exist while updating their software. The answer then is who knows when?

word 2011 freezes when pasting or moving text; does not print to pdf correctly

Hi I have recently upgraded to Office 2011, what a mistake.
I am having severe problems with Word 2011. In particular, 90% of the times I try to cut and paste the program freezes and I have to force quit it. Needless to say I am furiously saving the document but I cannot keep on saving every 2 seconds.
The other problem I am having is with printing or saving to pdf. A lot of the sections, especially if in landscape lose the format, and for example a table, instead of starting at the beginning of the section is shifted to the middle of the page. Very frustrating.
Is there any way to fix any of these?
I am working on an IMac, Max OS X, 10.6.8, processor 3.06 GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo. Please help

Have you installed the latest service pack for Office 2011 from Microsoft? My version shows 14.1.3 and I haven't had any problems since that service pack was installed.

MS Word Freezes on Paste

Folks,

First of all, like Janelle I have have fully updated my OS X 10.7.2 running on a 2.3 GHz Intel Code i7. MS Word is Version 14.1.4 and my preferences enable "smart paste". But when pasting from one document (created hours ago) to another, it freezes. I have sent at least a dozen notifications to Apple. Admittedly, I have had freezes in copy and paste from the web, so I am trained to paste it first to a Mail "address" to remove any formatting. This is indeed a real bug in MSW 2011.

However, thanks for the information on the auto recovery folder. Such makes the crashes less onerous

Craig

Since the last update for Office (14.1.4) I have not had any pasting problems nor problems with text turning to asterisks on large documents. Not to say what you're reporting isn't happening....

Also, sending reports to Apple serves no purpose whatsoever. It's best to contact MS through their Word Mac forum. Here is the LINK.

MS Word Freezing with paste

I consider you fortunate, sans freezing. While I did not track the entire string I have no idea of what you are referring when you comment about asterisks. I am not getting asterisks, MS Word freezes and I have to relaunch the app. I would not have tracked down Mac-Forums if this was not a true problem; I do have better uses of time than to complain about non-existent issues. My hope with the reports is that with enough reports on the same issue MS might take notice. I will, however, contact MS through the Word Mac Forum.

As a first time user of this forum I would like to comment that it is unlikely for folks to come to you without a real problem. To be dismissive by saying that you do not suffer such a problem with the same software is probably not good form. Looking through the entries, it appears that you say that a lot.

Why?

Craig

It's hardly dismissive when the poster acknowledges the problem but explains that they haven't experienced it since the last update. You might be just a tad over sensitive. The internet is awash with freezing threads encountered during cut and paste actions - and the big kiss of death - which was having your entire document turn into nothing but asterisks in an unrecoverable fashion. Chscag is just pointing out that the update 'supposedly' fixed it - but if you're experiencing otherwise - obviously the only source for a solution will be MS themselves. There are little pretend shotgun spray troubleshooting steps at the Word forums including thing like font weeding - but no definitive solution outside of an effective update from MS.

Put me in the camp of not experiencing either (fortunately, and knock on wood) - but in case you were wondering, I'm not dismissing the fact that you may be experiencing the issue.