Question about Word 2011 and crashing

Word 2011 keeps crashing on my MacBook when I'm editing a big document with many track changes for example this 600kb document I'm working on now keeps crashing, with the message no memory available - infuriating when it happens four times in succession. Is installing Bootcamp the only or the best answer? is there a built-in problem with Word for Macs?

OK, so I went ahead and moved this post to its own thread in the appropriate forum. Because really what you need is help troubleshooting Word 2011 for the Mac, but you're muddying the waters with Boot Camp for some reason.

I think where you're going with your questions about "installing Boot Camp" is that you somehow came up with the idea of running the Windows version of Word in a Boot Camp install. And the simple answer to that question is no, this is not necessary. The Mac version of Word should work just fine. You've just got a problem with your particular install.

The first thing I'd say to do to troubleshoot this issue is to open up Word by itself. Click the Help menu and choose "Check for Updates". If there's an update available, install it. If not, report back and let us know.

I've had similar crashes, usually around copying and pasting between documents. I haven't done much troubleshooting. I save often as I work and reboot the Mac when it starts happening. I'm no expert but I've wondered about memory leaking??

Word crashing

Yes I thought that installing Windows would sort out my Word problems. That was the only reason for Bootcamp. I did update Word this morning - but can't tell if the problem has been solved until I encounter it again when i'm in the middle of editing.

I did have the problem before (last year) when copying and pasting between two large documents - small and frequent copying and pasting and frequent saving - that crashed Word (that was on my other Macbook with Word 2008)

Now, on Word 2011, I'm not doing any copying and pasting but heavy editing and backtracking and scrolling forward to see if something was done right earlier on and further on in the document - and the more it crashes the oftener I save (and I have Auto Save on for every five minutes ...)
It's a very new Macbook - about two weeks old

Someone told me that there is a built-in problem with Word on Mac - that there is a low limit on the size of file that can be handled and that this was the cause of my problems. Is this the case or not?

RachelS said:

Someone told me that there is a built-in problem with Word on Mac - that there is a low limit on the size of file that can be handled and that this was the cause of my problems. Is this the case or not?

Click to expand...

There is no memory limitation I'm aware of - and I've used it with complex documents that are hundreds of pages in size.

Since your install is so new, if the problem persists, I would take it up with Microsoft and see if they have any recommendations:

Microsoft Office for Mac Help and How-To

Even still, if this were an innate problem with the Mac version of Word, you'd have millions of people screaming. We do see the occasional complaint, but it's not common.

I take your point that there would be millions of complaints if it were really a in-built problem and will try the Microsoft help

Do you think adding more RAM would help? currently 4gGB on this laptop

RachelS said:

I take your point that there would be millions of complaints if it were really a in-built problem and will try the Microsoft help

Do you think adding more RAM would help? currently 4gGB on this laptop

Click to expand...

4GB should be more than sufficient. Since Word is a 32-bit application, it can't even address more than 4GB of RAM.

I'm guessing that with the updates installed, you will probably be OK going forward. If not, I would note the specific error message that you get when it crashes and we can troubleshoot it from there.

thanks - if it crashes again i'll post the details of any error messages

Well Word just has crashed and I can't save the document or save as, because i get this error message

"A file error has occurred. Check your network connections or make sure the disc is properly inserted or not defective."

This is crazy because this file is in my documents folder on my hard drive

I had to force quit Word because it froze after giving me that message - once for save and once for save as - and when I opened Word again the file opened up on the screen without prompting - but had lost half the editing I just did

Try this:

1. Quit all open applications
2. Open Disk Utility (Applications => Utilities)
3. Select "Macintosh HD" in the left pane
4. Click the First Aid tab.
5. Run Verify/Repair Permissions. Then run Verify/Repair Disk.

Let me know the result.

there were a few permissions that needed to be and have been repaired
User differs on Applications/.DS_Store
Permissions differ on Applications/.DS_Store
and
Group differs on Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist

so i'll wait and see when i start working on the document again tomorrow
Thanks

Let me add one thing to the good advice given you by cwa107, and that is go into Word preferences, click on the Save button, and place a check in the box that states "Always make a backup copy". Believe me, this will save you much misery if you should lose a large document due to a crash.

Also, another preference that I like to specify is I always designate my User Documents folder as the location for backups and saves. That makes things a lot easier to find if a crash does occur.

I can't believe this! I repaired permissions,( and I made sure that backup was switched on, and also designated my documents folder as the one to direct all the auto recovery, backup etc files) - but this file has just done the same thing as yesterday

"A file error has occurred. Check your network connections or make sure the disc is properly inserted or not defective."

Word has frozen, if i try a drop down menu (e.g. file, to save), i get a blank menu (in effect a white box on the screen) and can't move from there and have to force quit Word

I know i have the backup file, but its hardly an ideal way of working.I seem to have edited the same passages four or five times by now.

How can i stop this happening?? do you think there might be something dodgy with the file itself? it came in as Word 2008 document (.doc), and I saved it as a Word 2011 document (doc.x)

Help!

and in addition the backup file has lost the same editing as the main file - so how is a backup created? with the autosave? which i keep trying to put at every three minutes because i'm so furious at losing all this work repeatedly - but it insists on reverting to five minutes

on the Microsoft help for Word on Macs site they say firstly I should empty the Autorecovery folder (drag them on to the desktop) but would this work for me since I directed my auto recovery files to my documents folder? After that it says I should delete and reinstall Word preferences. Does this make sense?

No, it doesn't make sense. I suspect you have corruption somewhere. At this point it might save you time and headaches in the long term by removing Office and reinstalling. Removing and reinstalling will not destroy any documents that are already created. However, Office 2011 does not come with an uninstaller and can not be removed by dragging files to the Trash.

Follow these instructions provided by Microsoft to completely remove Office 2011. Reinstall and try again with the same document. If you run into the same problem after reinstalling, the document itself may be corrupt.

By the way, the auto recovery feature of MS Office is almost worthless in that it does not provide an easy way to recover data. The Mac MS Office trouble shooting page has some good hints that you might like to read up on.

we have deleted and reinstalled Office and will wait and see since i can't replicate the error voluntarily

a thought: when the error message (as quoted earlier in the thread) says 'make sure the disk is properly inserted or not defective' surely the only disk being referred to is the internal disk, since there are no other disks (though I suppose CDs are disks)

A Mac person here suggested returning the MacBook to the vendor for them to check out the hard drive - I'll try that if the reinstall of Office doesn't help
Thanks

did you get a solution?

Hi Rachel...did you get a solution to the Word 2011 for Mac problem?
My iMac is a few years old and I just upgraded to Word 2011 a few months ago and the crashing has been pretty consistent. I did call MS help and after being transferred to three depts and hung up on once, their solution was that I turn off Spell Checker because it was getting hung up trying to Spell Check on more than one document at a time. Funny, Word 1997 which I used for years never had that issue.

Anyway, I've done everything suggested in this thread and now I guess I just have to wait to see if the crashes happen again. I do have an iMac and a MBA, so I'll also try testing on both systems to see if it is happening on both places or not (I usually don't do my heavy editing of Word docs on the MBA).

Rachel, let me know how you are making out and if your problem got resolved.

Cheers,
Candy

This problem was driving me crazy and making me loose a lot of time during the last months. Pasting text would randomly crash Word, and neither unselecting the "Use smart cut and paste" option nor repairing disk permissions helped. The latter hint, though, provided what seems to have been the solution for me. Verification of my startup disk showed that it needed repair, and voila, everything seems to be back to normal. ps. Repairing the system disk required to startup from the OSX installation disk and use the disk utility from there. Would be glad if this helps other users. Best