Word for Mac 2011 keeps crashing every time I work with a document, relatively large (50Mb), on MacBook Pro. When I work at the same document, in iMac, there is no problem. What could it be?

Hi John:

Your issue is completely different to Muriels :-)

You are suffering the "Can't Save" bug.  Microsoft is currently trying to find the cause of this one (I know this because I am sitting ion the Microsoft offices in Redmond as we type...).

It appears to be a file deadlock, and yes, Time Machine could be the culprit (but there are several other possible sources of bother).  It appears to be worse in OS 10.7.

The only thing I can recommend as a work-around is:

1.  Every two or three hours (e.g. morning tea, lunchtime, afternoon tea) close and re-open Word.  This releases Word's hold on all the files it holds open when you are working.  Whenever you are editing a Word document, you have between 20 and 30 other temporary files open; these can run the OS X file system out of resources.
2.  At the finish of work each day, log out of your Mac.  This cleans up the memory and enabels certain house-keeping tasks.
3.  At the end of each week, shut the Mac down.  When you restart on Monday or whenever, OS X will completely clean p the memory and temporary files for you.

Hope this helps

Hello John,

I think that the Microsoft Team could work this issue. Is there a way to submit these comments to them?

Regards,

Muriel

Hello,

I have the same issue with (2) identical new MacBook Pro laptops (3 months) updated with latest software (OS X 10.7.3 and MS Office 3011 Mac). The problem has existed from the initial purchase (Nov 2011)

When working on large Word files over a several hour time period saving the doc results in the message: "You cannot save while the file is in use by another process. Try saving the file with a new name."

We then have to rename the doc and redirect Word where to save it.  In the original file resides a "Word Work File L_3756....tmp" which was the original doc.

Seems to happen after the Time Machine back-up.

Less often (but several times a day) we also get the following message:

"There is an unrecoverable disk error on file. The disk you're working on has a media problem that prevents Word from using it. Our work-around is to save the Word doc often so that a minimum amount of work is lost.

At that point the doc is unrecoverable and Word shuts down.

As it is the Word program is barely useable for us.

Respectfully,

John

Hello,

Word still crashes. But I've noticed something: the only difference (basically) between using a file in iMac and Macbook Pro is the clamshell (i.e., the macbook closed and in sleep mode).

I've noticed that, when I'm working in a word file, and in the middle of work a close de macbook to put it in sleep mode, when I open it up again the word file begins to present troubles (word crashes).

Could it be related to the temporary files that word creates when the computer enters sleep mode?

Just guessing. If this is relevant, please let me know!

Regards,

Muriel

Hello,

I have done the procedure:

Disk Utility - Verify disk

and

Disk utility - verify permissions

And both have indicated no problems. I have tried these before, but I have done them again.

Let's see if the files crashes, because in the previous try it crashed.

Regards,

Muriel