Exceeded maximum number of pages on Word

Anonymous
2019-12-10T03:29:26+00:00

Just today I began receiving an error message that states "You have exceeded the maximum number of pages supported by Word or this document may be damaged..."

Opening up a tried and true file that's been in use for the last 3 months...including just fine not 3 days ago (no updates to the file, nor a related template version from which the new file was constructed) Latest version of Office 365.

Symptoms beyond the error is that the file will not display in print view. File will not save. Will not print. Will not export.

Verified on multiple Win10 machines with latest updates and patches (as of this post). Tried it on an older computer that hasn't been used or updated since September. File works fine.

Saw older posts reference this issue, but nothing since 2014. Tried all those troubleshooting steps, so please don't reply with a link to a clearly outdated KB article.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2019-12-20T07:21:55+00:00

Hi All,

Thanks for all your effort in this thread.

As this thread has multiple replies, to help the user who having the same issue, I would like to make a quick summary on this issue:

Issue symptom:

After updating your Office to the version 1911, when using Word to work on the document with multiple pages, you might receive the error: "You have exceeded the maximum number of pages supported by MS Word."

 

Issue environment:

Office 365 Business Version 1911 (Build 12228.20364 Click to Run) Monthly Channel

Office 2016 Professional Plus 1911 (Build 1228.20364 Click to Run) Monthly Channel

Solution:

Thanks for Matt's confirmation, this issue seems to be resolved after he updating his Office application to the Monthly Targeted Channel version 1912 Build 12325.20172. As this is an insider update channel, we do not suggest updating into this channel as it has certain risks.

However, since the fix has been deployed in the insider channel, this means it will be roll out to the Monthly users in the future updates, please wait patiently. Thanks for your understanding.

Note: Join the insider channel require you to be an Office 365 subscriber, so if you are using Office 2016 Professional Plus(which is an One-Time purchase product), you won't be able to join the insider channel at this time. 

Workaround:

As Renato mentioned, he was benefit from the this thread. Although this is a Mac thread, but the method could be also applied to the Windows side. Here is the workaround:

1.Open the issued document, wait until the error prompt "You have exceeded the maximum number of pages.. " prompt out.

2.Leave the error prompt alone, create a new blank document.

3.Copy the content in the issued document and paste it to the blank document we just created.

4.Save&Close the new document. And open it again, check if the issue still persist.

Again, we greatly appreciate for all your effort in this thread.

Regards,

Alex Chen

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-02-16T18:25:23+00:00

    I found another possible solution...

    Assuming you can open the file without it crashing:

    1. Click on View from the ribbon
    2. Under the Views section, select Draft
    3. Click on File>Options
    4. Click on the Advanced menu
    5. Scroll down to General section
    6. Uncheck Enable Background Pagination

    That should keep Word from losing its mind and re-paginating tens of thousands of pages and triggering the error message.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-02-04T03:13:14+00:00

    Doug is very experienced in Word. If he suggests there is unreasonable efforts made in the formatting of documents, I'd suggest taking another look at what you are doing and how it can be done "better".

    .

    MS is constantly making "improvements" to the applications. These improvements can have unintended effects, introducing bugs. So, something that has "always worked", may no longer work.

    .

    For all of you who are losing money, losing business, this is not the place to make those complaints. You should make them using the Feedback Process. MS managers do read feedbacks, very few read this forum.  MS does pay attention to business complaints. Include mention of the extract expenses this problem is causing you.

    **********************

    Send Feedback to MS Developers

    Launch Win10 Feedback Hub via  <WIN><F>

    .

    “Official” MS does not pay much attention to this forum. However, you now can send your complaints and feature requests directly to MS developers and managers using one of the 4 possible “Feedback” mechanisms described in this link:

    .

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/send-feedback-to-ms-developers/506e7654-8ced-405b-911e-c58d8f253069

    .

    Please post a share link to your feedback, back here, so other people who find your question will be able to vote for it and add their comments to it.

    .

    Collection of MS “UserVoice” web links:

    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows\_10-desktop/ms-suggestion-box-sites-at-usdervoicecom/7397119c-6d48-49e6-8d94-7bd0a50d214f

    .

    MS Feedback article, says basically the same thing:

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4021566/windows-10-send-feedback-to-microsoft-with-feedback-hub

    .

    *********************************

    .

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-02-04T02:12:32+00:00

    We only use "continuous" with our section breaks to ensure consecutive page numbering.  This terrible glitch will not allow us to have "continuous" section breaks and that makes the page numbering wrong. 

    Microsoft, we need this fixed. It is affecting our work and our clients.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-02-04T02:09:12+00:00

    Irrational number of section breaks?  We have been formatting documents the same way for 10+ years without problems. It is only recently that we have this problem with the numbering.  

    As far as we can tell, the problem with page renumeration is with the Section Breaks.  They should all say “Continuous” but they do not. Therefore, the page numbering starts again at 1 instead of continuing from the previous page. When I click on “Continuous” which is every page break we have ever used, it does not go there but just goes to “Page Break” instead of “Page Break > Continuous” and the numbering is wrong. Then, it stalls and updates to over 36,000 pages with shuts it down.

    We need this fixed as it is causing days of delays and clients are angry.

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