Repair Your Preferences or Settings Files
The Problem:
Sometimes I'm working away happily enough (I'd rather be surfingwho wouldn't?) and Word 2004 just decides to up and quit on me. I was going to say that Word crashes unexpectedly, but every crash is unexpected, isn't it? On a Mac, anyway....
The Solution:
These crashes could be caused by various problems, but one possibility that should appear fairly high on your list is damaged preferences or settings files. Here's how to fix them:
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Open a Finder window to your ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft folder and check out the following files, depending on whether you're using Word 2004 or Word X:
- Word 2004
- com.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist and com.microsoft.Office.prefs.plist
- Word X
- Word Settings (10), Microsoft Component Preferences, Microsoft Office Settings (10), and Carbon Registration Database
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Quit Word, and then drag the com.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist file or the Word Settings (10) file from the ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft folder to the Desktop. Relaunch Word (which makes it automatically create a replacement for the missing file) and see if the problem has disappeared. If it has, you'll need to reset some of your preferences and restore your custom AutoCorrect entries; if not, drag the new file from the ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft folder to the Trash, drag the old file back from the Desktop to the ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft folder, and proceed with the next step.
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Quit Word (if it hasn't crashed) and any other Office applications you're running, and repeat the drag-to-the-Desktop process with each of the other files in turn, checking Word at each stage.