Word 2011 -- problems with compatibility mode -- text disappears then reappears

Hi All,

I am using Microsoft Word 2011 on a Mac Mini OS X 10.8.3. My problem is this: when I am in the middle of editing Word documents that have already been worked on by other authors, the whole document suddenly turns blank and the menus at the top of the screen disappear. I cannot see any text or select anything at all.

Then, when I click on a different window, e.g. Firefox (to search for a solution!!) and the Word document is left open in the background, the text suddenly reappears in the Word document. When I return to the Word doc and click on it to resume my work, the text and Word menus disappear AGAIN. The affected documents have [compatibility mode] in the document title.

I have found that a short-term fix is to quit and restart Word, and the problem eventually goes away ... temporarily. But this problem keeps plaguing me (especially when I am trying to meet an important deadline).

Any ideas for a long-term fix?

Many thanks in advance for any advice you can give me!:Blushing:

Welcome to the Mac Forums.

First, your post was moved here to the correct forum as it has nothing to do with running Windows.... (where you posted it)

I have never seen the problem you described but maybe we can try something to see if it works. Compatibility mode means the document is being edited in such a way that it will be able to be read as *.doc or *.docx. In other words not as xml.

The next time you receive a document that has multiple authors and editors, try using the "save as" function and assign it a new name. Then proceed to edit the document. You can always rename it back later if necessary. Not a very elegant way to handle a document but it may work and save you time in the long run.

Thanks for moving the post and for your reply

I always rename the document before I start editing but unfortunately the problem still occurs, in both .doc and .docx formats. The problem has occurred twice today already and caused me to lose my work.

(I am an editor and use Word everyday in my job, and I have recently moved to using a Mac and this is the first time I have ever encountered this problem (>.<) I can't find any reference to it on other Mac forum sites either.)

I looked around on the trouble shooting Mac Word Web Site LINK for an answer and could find nothing about the problem you're having.

As I stated above, I have never run into that particular error before, however, our documents are usually just authored by one person. I have both Word 2011 and Word 2010 for Windows (which I also use) and again, have not seen that happen.

What I suggest, is to go to the link I provided above, look around for anything that may help. From there you can also link (it's provided) to their forums where you can ask for help. Since there are more Mac Office users that access those forums, perhaps someone may have an answer for you. Wish I could be of more help. If you find a solution, we would appreciate you posting back and letting us know.

Good luck and thanks for using our forums.

Thanks so much for the link! I will check it out and post something there. I have also posted in another forum so hopefully I will find a solution soon. Will definitely post back here and share any helpful info.
Thanks again!

I received help from the Microsoft Community for my problem, where John & Rich suggested the following. I have followed through on this and, so far, it's going okay.

"That document is seriously corrupt. You need to save it as a new file, then Accept all the tracked changes in it. If you try to keep the tracked changes, you soon won't be able to open the document at all.

You also need to urgently update your copy of Microsoft Office, if you have not already done so. As Rich says, the current version is 14.3.8. If you really are on 14.1.0, then "yes", the problem you have was fixed in an update. But that problem was very destructive: if Word doesn't crash, you will lose the entire content of your document if it has time to save it."

If the problem happens again, and I resolve it, I will let you know!^^

Thanks for posting back. I guess I should have asked if your copy of Office was up to date, my fault for overlooking that. And yes, a corrupt document would certainly cause strange things to happen.

Here's hoping everything goes smoothly from now on.