Exceeded maximum number of pages on Word

2. No, not all files have the same problem.

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Since the problem is limited to one file, it sounds like that file has been corrupted some how.  Last month it was due to a problem in the program.  But your version is beyond the version identified as a fix in the following link. The update may not completely fix the problem.

2019 12 19- "You have exceeded the maximum number of pages supported by Word or this document may be damaged..."

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_word-mso_win10-mso_o365b/exceeded-maximum-number-of-pages-on-word/4776f2c8-1349-437e-94ae-349a13922446

This appears to be related to an Office update earlier in the month. Restoring Office to an earlier version fixed the problem.  Installing Office Insider also fixed the problem (ie MS has a code fix that has not yet been rolled out to everyone).

Manual Workaround:

<snip>

I was getting that same message about exceeding the maximum pages in word.

This started right after I updated my MS Word to the latest.

And I was also opening a document that I had not changed in months.

It would start calculating the pages in the doc, which should have been 11, and then would crash and the page count, in the corner of the screen would say something like 7,000.

Here is what fixed it for me.

I opened the word doc, and it started calculating the number of pages.

Before it could get very far, I switched to Draft mode, which I am guessing stops that counting.

Now I could look around in the document without it freezing or crashing.

So what I noticed, in my case, is that I had a section break that was set to link back to the previous section break, but I had deleted that section break.

I noticed that it would never let me scroll past the third section break in my doc, so I figured that maybe that one was the troublemaker.

So, I just started looking at the settings of each section break. When I got to the bad one, it was set to link to previous and "section break continuous.".

The strange part is, I don't ever use link to previous. And I didn't want continuous, I wanted next page.

Changed both of those settings to how I wanted them and then smooth sailing.

But I also made a copy of the file and tried just deleting the bad section break.

That also worked for me.

</snip>

Rohn,

Thanks.

Doug Robbins, MVP, fixed the file for me.

He says that he put it in Draft mode (which happens automatically with Office 365 when the error message appears), then copied everything except the last paragraph marker to a new document.

I haven't begun to proofread the fixed file, but at least the page numbers are reasonable now and I can see it in print view, which will allow me to access the headers.

Marty

If the document is not too large to attach to an email message, send me a copy of it that way, referencing this thread in the covering email message and I will see if I can recover your document.

Alternatively, upload a copy of the document to the following folder of my OneDrive

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AmuIXmFDy-1a8nP3RpgnYHp-5zXK

and send me an email to the address shown in my signature to let me know that it is there.

Doug fixed my problem.

He put the document in draft mode and copied everything except the last paragraph marker into a new document.

It has made the file manageable again.

Thanks, Doug!

Marty

Hi Martin:

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Good to hear you got a fix. Doug is a rock star that way. He has an exceptional understanding of the underlying (XML) code built in to Word documents. And and a very few others are able and willing to dig in to corrupt files to fix them. Something that MS does not bother to do.

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The very last paragraph mark in the document is also an implied section break. This fundamental fact is unknown by most people. As well as containing the paragraph formatting it contains the "section"/Page formatting (margins etc). In the simplest case, a document with only 1 section, that is the all of the page formatting for the whole document.  If the corruption causing the problem is in the section formatting, eliminating that last implied section break can fix problems.  Doug's solution is an easy fix.  Add a couple of extra blank paragraphs then select from the bottom of the document to the top and paste into a new blank file.  The new document has a properly formatted final section break, and the copied text contains all other relevant formatting.  All of your content should be there. You may have to reset margins and a couple of settings to recreate your original document layout. But it certainly is preferable to recreating all or most of the document.

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FYI: everyone see's all of the replies so there is no need to address the same comments to different people in separate replies. You can mention all of the relevant names to get our specific attention.