How does YOUR Word 2008 work ?

[sinser]

Aaaargh, Word 2008 is driving me crazy. I'm writing a thesis, very basic, no strange graphics or whatever, but the damn thing crashes a lot of times. I have the latest updates and have done a few uninstall/install cycles + usual mac stuff (delete preferences, repair permissions) but to no avail. How does it work for you ? When I used the 2004 version it run much smoother. I could switch back, but while Office 2004 came from "unknown" sources I have a legal purchased copy of Office 2008 which I'd like to use.

 

[claimed4all]

Even though I rarely use it, I find Word 2008 to be much more stable than Word 2004, which I used before.

 

[iNash]

Aaaargh, Word 2008 is driving me crazy. I'm writing a thesis, very basic, no strange graphics or whatever, but the damn thing crashes a lot of times. I have the latest updates and have done a few uninstall/install cycles + usual mac stuff (delete preferences, repair permissions) but to no avail. How does it work for you ? When I used the 2004 version it run much smoother. I could switch back, but while Office 2004 came from "unknown" sources I have a legal purchased copy of Office 2008 which I'd like to use.

I always had issues when I used my Mac for work, the same as you say, Word kept crashing all the time, in the end I went for Pages on the Mac and just used a Windows Laptop (company not choice) for all the workey stuff.

Hopefully someone here might have a solution?

 

[shamanskyh]

Sorry I can't help you but...

I'm very pleased with iWork (both '08 and now '09). The templates are beautiful and the interface is unbeatable. There's obviously the price although you do lose a few features to Word.

 

[GGJstudios]

Word 2008 works fine for me. I can't recall it ever crashing.

 

[spetykowski]

Wish I could help, but As far as my exprience, I've never had a problem with Microsoft Office '08, and Word has never been a problem for me. Hope someone can get you an answer.

 

[chatoyer]

I've not had any catastrophic crashes with Word 08, but then I do most of my non-mathematical/economics writing in either DevonTHINK Pro or Bean these days:

http://www.bean-osx.com/

Highly recommend Bean if all you are doing is straight text. I find that Word 08 still has that dreaded lag when typing. It is ever so slight, but just enough to drive me bat***** crazy.

 

[diazj3]

I'm very disappointed that MS Word for Mac can't be used to edit html any more. I used to be able to do it with Word 2004, but now with version 2008 I can't even open the document.

 

[Consultant]

12.1.3 works ok.
Anything before that are very buggy.

If you just needed for text,
try the free NeoOffice?

 

[22Hertz]

Im in college and use it all the time on a MBP and MP.
While it does have quirks which are annoying it has never crashed on me.

I think the consensus will be similar to my experience.
You may have another program interfering, or possibly previous fragments/pieces of Office software lingering around (not removed) when you reinstalled and causing a conflict???

 

[Molnies]

Word 2008 crashes all the time for me too, and I haven't been able to figure out the reason either. I first figured it was a font issue but that proved to be false, so I have no clue. Another major problem for me with Word is its inability to work on dual monitors, it's just unusable.

So my solution has been to switch over to Pages '09, which I don't regret at all. Pages can do everything I did in Word with the exception of having both vertical and horizontal pages in the same document, but since I rarely use that feature it's no big problem.

 

[nadyne]

Aaaargh, Word 2008 is driving me crazy. I'm writing a thesis, very basic, no strange graphics or whatever, but the damn thing crashes a lot of times. I have the latest updates and have done a few uninstall/install cycles + usual mac stuff (delete preferences, repair permissions) but to no avail. How does it work for you ? When I used the 2004 version it run much smoother. I could switch back, but while Office 2004 came from "unknown" sources I have a legal purchased copy of Office 2008 which I'd like to use.

It's hard to figure out what the problem might be, so you might first want to try the troubleshooting steps from the Word MVPs. Since you're writing a thesis, I'm going to assume that it's a long document (mine was!), so if you're seeing most of your problems when you're working on that document, you might want to try the document corruption troubleshooting steps.

If you get really stuck, you might want to post to the Word public forum -- that's where all the Word MVPs hang out, and they're absolutely awesome at helping to figure out what's going on and what to do about it.

Regards,
Nadyne.