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?

If disabling AutoRecover does not fix your problem

There was a recent issue with Time Machine taking a long time to back up drives. This would, of course, lock up any files it's copying. It has now been resolved with two supplemental updates from Apple:

• OS X Lion 10.7.5 Supplemental Update (2.02MB)
• OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 Supplemental Update (26.65MB)

Thank you Daniel, I will try it and report back.

I have this same issue as Alain. System specs are: 

17" Unibody MBP, 2.3GHz i7, 8GB ram, 480GB OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD

The messages are the same as Alain's and the result is the same, the original is deleted unit runs hot and the fans spin up.

Some background: Previous HDD showed hard linking errors in console that could then not be repaired due to hardware failure. SSD showed them after word crashing and diskutil could repair. Have yet to see the hardlink errors again.

Permission repairs, disk repairs, three reinstalls and two clean installs plus replacing the HDD with an SSD have not resolved the issue.

This is causing Word to be essentially unusable.

The 'good' thing about this is that it is a consistant issue, which can be replicated on demand given the 'correct' steps :)

So like Alain, looking for any input that could troubleshoot or even solve the issue.

Thanks in advance,

Thomas

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 :)

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