Office 2011 random save issues

I have a 6 month old MacBook Pro retina running OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks. Since day one I have had an issue with Word and Excel documents (I suspect also with Powerpoint but I use those less often so haven't seen the behavior with that) If I use 'Save As', randomly (about 3 out of every 4 times) it will save the document somewhere other than the folder that it was opened in. Usually it is saving them to Documents but sometimes other places. I have to be vigilant to notice which folder it changes to in the save as box and switch it back to the original.

I used many of the same documents on my old MacBook and didn't have these issues.

I have spent many hours on the phone with Apple support - always ends up with them telling me to contact Microsoft support. When I call Microsoft support they always tell me it isn't a Microsoft issue and I need to contact Apple. I am at my wits end with this as it is causing me to not have latest versions of documents when I open them. I have no choice but to use Office as I am jointly working on documents with my colleagues who all have PCs. Any suggestions greatly welcomed.

I am certain both Microsoft and Apple Tech Support have asked you this, but we'll cover it anyway.

In Microsoft Word, did you set your default Documents location to your preferred space? You would go to: Word -> Preferences and under "Personal Settings" you'll see "File Locations." Highlight "Documents" and then choose "Modify" to set your preferred location. That should put all your saved files there.

Are you using "Save As" instead of "Save" so you can hold on to multiple versions? If not, I'd suggest just hitting "Save." And even so, if you have your File Locations set in Word Preferences, "Save As" should still take you to that same directory location so you have the option to save under a different name and store it with all the other versions.

If you already went through this, it may be a corrupted preference file somewhere, and I'd suggest following these instructions from Microsoft to reset everything.

Let us know!

Yes- they did go through all that (as well as uninstalling and reinstalling office). Problem is that if I change the file location away from Documents all my files will be saved to the alternative folder I specify which doesn't help the problem as I need them to all be saved to their specific folders rather than all to the same folder. (Also, even when I tried that for a brief time it didn't prevent the behavior of randomly not saving to the place I had set.)
I thought maybe some documents were corrupted so I tried pasting the info into new documents and saving under different name but it didn't help. Also, it does it with documents I create as New as well not just old documents both in Excel and Word.
Only reason I am using Save As is I did it once when I need multiple version of the same document and noticed that it tried to save it somewhere else. Now I am afraid to just use Save as I would have no way (since I don't trust the whole save process) of knowing where it is saving the file (apart from going into Finder and checking where it is every time I Save which would be more time consuming than my current situation.

Member "caribiner23" showed you the correct method for setting up where your documents should be saved to. If you need to place documents in specific folders it's probably best to save them first to "Documents" and then move them to other folders you desire. When you open a document from a specific folder, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, will save the document to the same folder you opened it from. When you use "Save As", you can change the name of the document, location, and even the document type.

I work with MS Office Word and Powerpoint and have numerous documents saved to various folders and even sub folders. Maybe your situation is unique in some way or I'm not understanding what you're doing, but I don't see where the difficulty is.

Hi, thanks, yes there is a weird unique thing going on. It makes no difference where I first save the document to, when I subsequently later try to edit it and then resave it Word or Excel randomly saves it to a folder other than the one I opened it in. So when you say:
"When you open a document from a specific folder, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, will save the document to the same folder you opened it from. "
This isn't happening (well it is happening sometimes but maybe only 1 out of every 4 saves {even within the same document} gets saved back to the folder I opened it from.

Caff3 said:

Hi, thanks, yes there is a weird unique thing going on. It makes no difference where I first save the document to, when I subsequently later try to edit it and then resave it Word or Excel randomly saves it to a folder other than the one I opened it in. So when you say:
"When you open a document from a specific folder, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, will save the document to the same folder you opened it from. "
This isn't happening (well it is happening sometimes but maybe only 1 out of every 4 saves {even within the same document} gets saved back to the folder I opened it from.

Click to expand...

Well, that certainly would generate headaches for me too. There must be something else going on in order for that to be happening. I've never had any Office app act that way when using it on my Mac and also Office for Windows (which I also own).

I know you asked Microsoft and Apple for help and instead got the typical run around, but you might want to present your problem to the MS Mac Office forum which is run by volunteers (peer to peer). My experience with them has been excellent. Maybe someone there can come up with a solution.

Thanks for the suggestion- I'll try that.
Editing my post with an update as I think the problem is solved! (fingers crossed!) thanks so much for the suggestion to contact MS Mac Office Forum. There were some posts there that referred to the same issue - a moderator there said it is a systems issue (he wasn't sure if it is a by design or a bug) and recommended a software program that solves the problem and does a lot more helpful things in terms of organizing files on a Mac. It's called Default Folder - I just downloaded a free trial version and by going into the preferences of it and setting it to save files to the folder that they are opened in it seems to have solved the problem. So thanks again for the recommendation.

Did you by any chance use Migration Assistant to bring Office from the old MacBook? If so a complete uninstall and fresh install may do the trick. Back up first.

Quite a time consuming and length operation:-


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2398768

Just for future reference in case anyone else reports the problem: Did you try running Office from a "clean" / new user account? I wonder if their isn't some other piece of software contributing to the problem. I have no idea what it might be though.

His situation is a bit unusual. He has reinstalled Office upon advice from Apple but still has the same problem. Uninstalling Mac Office 2011 is an involved process, however. There are several GB of files and folders that need to be removed to effect a complete uninstall. Instructions are provided by MS as there is no uninstaller provided with Office 2011.

I think both Apple Support and Microsoft support talked me through that process but it didn't help. Seems like the Default Folder software I mentioned above is solving the issue. I sent feedback on this to Apple as interesting that the only person who knew that it was an issue was a moderator on the MS Mac Office Forum (but it clearly is an issue as at least 2 people had reported it on there and I think they were using different OS versions to me)

Hi,

I have quite same problem in using of Microsoft Excel and Word. I can't save or save as file, and always got this message.

Microsoft Error Reporting log version: 2.0

Error Signature:
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS
Date/Time: 2015-04-07 10:08:06 +0000
Application Name: Microsoft Excel
Application Bundle ID: com.microsoft.Excel
Application Signature: XCEL
Application Version: 14.1.0.110310
Crashed Module Name: unknown
Crashed Module Version: unknown
Crashed Module Offset: unknown
Blame Module Name: unknown
Blame Module Version: unknown
Blame Module Offset: unknown
Application LCID: 1033
Extra app info: Reg=en Loc=0x0409
Crashed thread: 0

Anyone have a solution?
I use Yosemite, and this problem just occurred recently.

regards,

Wahju

I have quite same problem in using of Microsoft Excel and Word. I can't save or save as file, and always got this message.

Microsoft Error Reporting log version: 2.0

Error Signature:
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS

Click to expand...

Your problem is not the same as reported in this thread and really should be a separate thread rather than tagging on to this one. However, since you're already here and moving this to a separate thread may cause confusion, I'll try to answer:

The error you're receiving is probably due to corruption in Office 2011. The only thing I can suggest to clear that up is a re-install of Office 2011. You'll need to remove Office and re-install. Follow the Microsoft Instructions given here. Re-installing will not remove your documents or personal templates, however, you should back them up just in case. Also be sure to have your Office serial number on hand when re-installing so you can activate Office again.