Microsoft Word - an(other) oddity

[legerdemer]

I use Word 2011 on a Mac, and very recently have run into a bizarre problem - when receiving Word docs from a colleague by mail (Gmail), I cannot save the document after making changes to it, nor can I even copy the text and paste it into another document, for example in Pages. When I go to Save or Save As, those items in the Menu are greyed out. It is very annoying because of course I've already spent the time making the changes I need to make...

Aarrgghhhhhh! Help, anyone?

 

[legerdemer]

ps one more detail

The docs are sent from a PC user. I have not run into this when they are sent from a Mac user, though I don't have a ton of data since the problem came up.

 

[oggbashan]

I found that too after a large series of updates.

I closed Word for 30 seconds and opened it again - problem solved.

 

[Paul_Chance]

It may have nothing to do with it, but is your subscription/license for Word 2011 still current? (This hits a lot of people who are using a trial version that came with the Mac and the time limit has expired.)

 

[legerdemer]

Thanks - problem solved

I found that too after a large series of updates.

I closed Word for 30 seconds and opened it again - problem solved.

Brilliant solution! Idiotic problem to have - I lost a bunch of changes, though I did take a screen shot first, so have the record of them.

Thanks again. Very strange...

 

[legerdemer]

It may have nothing to do with it, but is your subscription/license for Word 2011 still current? (This hits a lot of people who are using a trial version that came with the Mac and the time limit has expired.)

Thanks for the thought, but no, that wasn't it. I am using a legal regular copy (have to for work).

 

[JagFarlane]

You can also check with the PC user and see if they are hitting the Protect Document on their docs. If they are, then you can't make any changes to the document until its turned off.

 

[legerdemer]

You can also check with the PC user and see if they are hitting the Protect Document on their docs. If they are, then you can't make any changes to the document until its turned off.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will check if this setting is on.

 

[Weird Harold]

Thanks for the suggestion, I will check if this setting is on.

I use word 2010 on a PC. My version of Word will automatically open a document in protected mode if it detects that it came from some other system. It also displays a highlighted warning and a link to "enable editing," so that probably isn't your problem but might be something to be aware of.

The other thing my version features is an "enable sharing" option on the "File" menu. That option checks for possible compatibility problems with other versions of Word. Your corespondent may have options or macros embedded that your version of word doesn't recognize.

 

[StrangeLife]

If something gets screwed up to the point where you can't save the document, open "Force Quit" and brutally kill Word, as if it was the lover of a cheating spouse in Loving Wives..

When you start it again, Word will recover the document at the last restore-point - which is probably set to 10 minutes or something like that - and you should be back in full control with a minimum of loss...

 

[Handley_Page]

We didn't have this sort of problem with WordStar 6. . . .
<snigger>

 

[Zeb_Carter]

If this happens on a Windows PC, I just check the read status of the original file and if it is read only change it to read/write. I don't care where it came from, it's now on my machine and I have complete control of it.

Actually, MSWord gives you an option to open it as read only or change the to a read/write document. Even if it's read only, the save as is still active.

 

[legerdemer]

Thanks

Yep, force quit did it. I had saved my changes in a screen shot, luckily. I hate Word but it's even harder to not use it.

If something gets screwed up to the point where you can't save the document, open "Force Quit" and brutally kill Word, as if it was the lover of a cheating spouse in Loving Wives..

When you start it again, Word will recover the document at the last restore-point - which is probably set to 10 minutes or something like that - and you should be back in full control with a minimum of loss...

 

[legerdemer]

Thanks, all!! Problem solved.

Thanks for all the help. The problem was solved and I learned a few things.

We can let the thread die a gentle death. I'd delete it if I could, so it doesn't take up space.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Thanks for all the help. The problem was solved and I learned a few things.

We can let the thread die a gentle death. I'd delete it if I could, so it doesn't take up space.

Don't sweat it. Sometimes these threads are useful to people who weren't the original poster.

 

[Handley_Page]

Don't sweat it. Sometimes these threads are useful to people who weren't the original poster.

How true. It is also useful for another question on the same subject. For Example:

Word 2003, PC.
I'm having trouble occasionally with block indent of a paragraph (think in terms of a "quote" or similar). Highlight the paragraph, move the cursors, and Voila !

The whole damned document has changed; not just the highlighted bit.

I cannot find the appropriate pages in the so-called "help" system; it's not in the book, and all the versions I read about are not mine (or are trying to sell me Word 365 or some other 'cloudy' crap).

Does any user have a definitive answer please?

 

[legerdemer]

Might try this

Not sure that this will work for your specific problem, but it has worked for me in the past for similar ones. My paths are based on Word for Mac, but I bet they have similar settings in the PC version.

Go to your Preferences menu, then look either in the General submenu, or if you have it, in the Edit submenu first, then explore the General submenu if you don't find what you need under Edit. You should be able to reset the default selection unit, from document to paragraph or even to just a word at a time.

These menus have about a million and one possibilities, so you might need a glass of something nice while you're doing it. Hope it works.

How true. It is also useful for another question on the same subject. For Example:

Word 2003, PC.
I'm having trouble occasionally with block indent of a paragraph (think in terms of a "quote" or similar). Highlight the paragraph, move the cursors, and Voila !

The whole damned document has changed; not just the highlighted bit.

I cannot find the appropriate pages in the so-called "help" system; it's not in the book, and all the versions I read about are not mine (or are trying to sell me Word 365 or some other 'cloudy' crap).

Does any user have a definitive answer please?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Use these buttons to do indents...

 

[LadyVer]

There was one time I couldn't open a MS Word attachment on my laptop. It was a few months back. My laptop is fairly new and I use Office 365. I realized clicking on the attachment wasn't going to open it. I then closed the email browser window and signed back into my email account. That seemed to work.

 

[Weird Harold]

How true. It is also useful for another question on the same subject. For Example:

Word 2003, PC.
I'm having trouble occasionally with block indent of a paragraph (think in terms of a "quote" or similar). Highlight the paragraph, move the cursors, and Voila !

The whole damned document has changed; not just the highlighted bit.

I cannot find the appropriate pages in the so-called "help" system; it's not in the book, and all the versions I read about are not mine (or are trying to sell me Word 365 or some other 'cloudy' crap).

Does any user have a definitive answer please?

I've had a similar problem with the whole document getting affected. I've discovered that clicking Undo (or hitting Ctrl_Z) will undo the whole document change and leave just the paragraph change.

I've also found that not including the ending paragraph mark in the selection before reformatting a paragraph keeps to global change from happening.

Note, this seems to be a "feature" of Word rather than a "bug" because I've had the problem in three different versions of Word.

 

[StrangeLife]

We didn't have this sort of problem with WordStar 6. . . .
<snigger>

Or WordPerfect for DOS. It ran from two 3.25" floppies - one with the program and another with the document - never crashed and it could most of what the latest version of Word does.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Wordperfect-5.1-dos.png

 

[oggbashan]

Or WordPerfect for DOS. It ran from two 3.25" floppies - one with the program and another with the document - never crashed and it could most of what the latest version of Word does.

I used mainframe wordprocessing systems before switching to WordStar 1512 designed for a cheap IBM XT clone marketed by Amstrad - the Amstrad 1512.

WordStar 1512 would run from a single 360k 5.25 floppy on a machine with only that floppy drive and no hard drive.

WordStar 1512 did everything I wanted to do in wordprocessing and still would meet all my requirements - if I didn't want to read documents other people had sent to me.


The expensive two floppy drive Amstrad 1512:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fae0nzNpurw/ToDYsVTWZuI/AAAAAAAAAAQ/ww-FTeD6ly4/s1600/amstrad1512_1.JPG

 

[Handley_Page]

Strangely enough, WordStar 6 ran to 6 x 1.44MB disks, although it has to be said
that they included all thing that a particular user might not need (French Dictionary, or a variety of drivers for instance?). It really was a damned good programme.
Borland Sprint came close, though.

I suspect I may sometime have to got Backwards; to Word 97. I can still save my work as an RTF document.

 

[Handley_Page]

Microsoft strikes again

Information about Office 2016 HERE.

What baffles me is that Microsoft has forgotten who put them on that pedestal; the ordinary user. With Windows being in the-gods-know how many versions, it would make more sense (to me, anyway), to have a version which did not feature such cr@ppy responses as "contact your system administrator", which is fine if you are a care-free someone on the 3rd floor with someone on the 19th looking after your computer. but not if you've a bloody problem at 2am on a Sunday.

 

[Hypoxia]

Shall I confess? I write documents (and stories) on the free Jarte processor which has a very nice dictionary / thesaurus app included. But for full-document spelling checks I use Word 2004. Later versions 1) were not on systems I bought and 2) don't grab me.

BTW besides the editors on the early mini and mainframe systems I inhabited, my first micro editor was WordMaster, ancestor of WordStar. I worked awhile as a consultant for a WordStar spinoff firm, but that's another story. In the last four decades I've used countless editors / processors; Jarte is now my favorite with CuteHTML a close second. Word? Feh. For me it's a one-trick pony.