Diagnose Your Problem
Before even glancing at the table below, take note of the following three points:
- It is essential that you successfully Update your version of Office and the Apple OS. Word will not run properly if you have bad or missing updates. We cannot repeat this too often!
- In most troubleshooting situations, your first line of defense – after restarting Word, logging out and back in again, rebooting your computer, and updating Office – will be to Repair Disk Permissions. Try this first.
- Your last line of defense in most cases is to remove and reinstall
Office, but there are two important exceptions. In these
cases, your first line of defense should be to Remove & Reinstall
Office:
— If you have reinstalled Office or trashed and reinstalled an individual Office application without first using the Remove Office tool, then you have almost certainly made your problems worse by leaving behind files which may be corrupt or cause later conflicts.
— If you are trying to update Office and your update is unsuccessful, chances are good that you moved or renamed files that Office is therefore unable to locate.
Common Problems
The following table focuses on common problems (and a few not-so-common ones). If you find your problem in the first column, click on any of the links listed to learn what procedures to follow and, of course, start with those “most likely to help.”
Be aware that this table is not intended to be all-inclusive. If you do not find your specific problem listed, it is still possible that general troubleshooting measures will help. In that case, you might try the Diagnostic Tricks as a starting point.
Also, if a particular procedure is not listed in connection with the problem that brought you here, that doesn’t mean it’s of no use. Work through the procedures listed in the Troubleshooting Index.
Problem
|
Most Likely to Help |
Other Possibilities |
Unexpected quit on startup |
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Unexpected quit while in use |
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Unexpected quit on quitting |
Reboot your computer |
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Crash on Save with MacIntel & Word 2004 (only) |
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Formatting changes while typing: 1) First words capitalize. 2) URLs become active links. 3) Double hyphen becomes dash. 4) Numbers carry over to next paragraph. 5) Two underlines become a long line. |
Check your AutoCorrect and “AutoFormat as you type” settings on Tools menu> AutoCorrect More on taming AutoCorrect here. |
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Document weirdness: 1) Mixed up page numbering 2) Infinite repagination 3) Wrong layout or formatting 4) Unreadable characters 5) Crash when viewing particular file |
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Numbered lists don’t work right |
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Corrupt Font Errors |
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Fonts Keep Loading |
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Fonts don’t look right (Word X) |
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Font displayed is different from font selected |
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Red X replaces graphics |
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Spell-checking, Language & Dictionary Issues: 1) Spell-check misses words 2) Spell-check in different language 3) Spelling & grammar prefs grayed out 4) Spelling & grammar dialog won't refresh 5) Spanish custom dictionary won't work 6) Exclude dictionary won't work |
Spell-Checking, Language, and Dictionary Problems in MacWord |
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Can’t save or re-save to server |
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“Disk is Full” error |
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Won't print |
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| Can't change default paper size to Letter | Change print default workaround |
Diagnostic Tricks
These approaches are not fixes, they merely help identify the cause of a problem.
- Log out of your user account, then hold down shift while logging back in. If the problem disappears, it is probably due to some conflict with the login items/utilities in your user account, since shift-login prevents those from loading. Reload them one by one until the problem re-appears. The last one loaded probably caused it. [This is a general OS X troubleshooting tip that may apply to any program, not just Word.]
- Create a new user account in OS X and test in that one. If the problem disappears, then the installation is fine but some user-specific file has corrupted. Test for Damaged Preferences, a corrupt Normal template, or Add-ins.