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?

How have others been able to rid of this problem?

Lots of different recipes and shots in the dark, as you can see. In fact, this problem also exists in Windows.

Are you using Google Drive? If so, try turning it off or setting GDrive Sync off. Likewise, if you are using any Internet drive service, like DropBox or Syncplicity, try turning them off. In all likelihood, the problem resides in certain process still locking the large file when Word attempts to save it. Thus, doing a Save As ensures no one else is using it and the operation succeeds. 

I use Google Drive only for shared spreadsheets, but I do not use it as a way to back up or save the files that I'm working in. I'm strictly working from a Word Document that is saved in a folder on my Desktop. I was previously using DropBox, but since I rebuilt my HD and reinstalled Word, I decided to leave DropBox off and have not used it since the problem continued to reoccur. I tried looking through my Activity Monitor when this error message comes up, and I can't figure out what other process is trying to access my Word doc at the same time. But like the other users with this problem, it continues to create a new .tmp file after every error message.

I'm really not sure what to try next, but like others have said it gets to the point where I have to rename it every single time I save. How have others been able to rid of this problem?

Are you using Google Drive? If so, try turning it off or setting GDrive Sync off. Likewise, if you are using any Internet drive service, like DropBox or Syncplicity, try turning them off. In all likelihood, the problem resides in certain process still locking the large file when Word attempts to save it. Thus, doing a Save As ensures no one else is using it and the operation succeeds.

Start by disabling Word > Preferences > Save > Save AutoRecover info.

Daniel,

I have been having the same issues as a lot of these people. I have had to rebuild my HD due to this issue, and have reinstalled Word thinking that was the problem. After reading through a lot of these comments, I have tried the following:

*taking out special characters in the file name

*unplugging TimeMachine while working in the document

*turning off AutoRecovery Save feature in Word

*creating a new profile on MacOSX and working from that user name

*got rid of EndNote

Just like others, I'm working in relatively large word docs with .jpeg's copied in them that I am captioning. I am getting the same error about the document not being able to be saved properly due to it being used by another process, so I am forced to rename it and select a new location.

Some of the earlier suggestions about disabling folders and those things seem way over my head and I didn't quite understand what was being said. Any updates on this issue or suggestions for being able to work in Word? This is getting absurd that I keep losing my files.

Thanks for any help. It is much appreciated.

Nick

There is not much information I found, but it seems that Word is attempting to access a file that is being copied by Time Machine (the "another process").

Try setting up a work folder for your currenly-in-use files, then exclude it from Time Machine.

For safety, enable the backup option in Word > Preferences > Save. It's safer and more useful than AutoRecover.

And if you use the latter, set it for a longer interval (never 1 minute) and also exclude this folder: YOUR_USER_NAME (i.e., your home folder)/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 AutoRecovery (this is where Word saves by default its AutoRecovery files).

Setting up a intermediary documents folder, and then having to manually backup this folder to another folder to ensure it gets included in the time machine backup is not really a solution (what the point of running a automated backup service, if you continuously have to manually ensure that everything gets backed up).

Don't get me wrong, its nice with a workaround. its just a tad inelegant :)