Word will not print (2002)

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Folks. I have a complex document (a 14 page form with lots of places to fill data in represented as drawing elements such as text baoxes and drawing shapes).

I can edit it and save it – but when I go to print Word simply hourglasses forever.
I thought – no sweat – I’ll just save an RTF to fix whatever is wierd. Sadly, saving as RTF also creates the same lockup issue.

I assume I’ve triggered a Word bug somewhere – but where? If I have to deal to this manually – what items am I looking for first?

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Can you print it one page at a time, or not even get the dialog up?

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I can get the dialog up but it fails even on page 1 – on the other hand, I’m betting on page 1 as having the error. I suspect that I’ll be shortly carving it up via Phil’s suggestion.

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I can get the dialog up but it fails even on page 1 – on the other hand, I’m betting on page 1 as having the error. I suspect that I’ll be shortly carving it up via Phil’s suggestion.

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Can you print it one page at a time, or not even get the dialog up?

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Hi Andrew:
If this is the only document that this is ocurring to, it sounds like corruption. Why don’t you copy 1/2 of the document to a new doc & try to print. If it prints OK, save it & copy 1/2 of the remaining 7 pages. Continue doing this until it hangs. Then close it without saving. Copy & paste a smaller portion. This way, you may find the corruption & only need to redo a small portion of your 14 page document.
Hope this helps,

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Thanks Jefferson & Phil
Yep – I’ll try the binary prune method.
As an aside – that rtf SaveAs I said failed – actually hadn’t. It took about half an hour and turned a 2,500KB file into a 550,000KB one.

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Thanks Jefferson & Phil
Yep – I’ll try the binary prune method.
As an aside – that rtf SaveAs I said failed – actually hadn’t. It took about half an hour and turned a 2,500KB file into a 550,000KB one.

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Just a report back – I’ve got it under control now

I cut the document as Phil suggested and eventually found a drawing shape about half way down page three that triggered the behavior. Delete the element, all sweetness and light, add it – lock-up. This element was the LAST shape added to the document (timewise, not layoutwise)

Terrific – fixed, or so I thought.

Whichever way I approach it I have not been able to re-add a drawing element where I want it. Each time I add one, I trigger the same lockup. I’m starting to assume that there is a pragmatic limit to the number of drawing elements that the document will support.
I estimate this document contains around 120 elements – although I haven’t counted.

I can manage a work-around, now that I know what I’m up against (next week). Although suggestions over the weekend would also help .
Does anyone know of a limit to drawing elements or is it likely to still be a corruption in my document that an rtf may be required to cure?
Could I change behaviour by grouping some elements?

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Hi Andrew:
There shouldn’t be a limitation of the number of graphics (although, as a practical matter, it is limited by memory, speed of operating system, etc.). I couldn’t find the article for Word 2002, but there is article for Word 2000 called Operating Parameters & Specifications. The maximum size of a document is 32MB, excluding graphics. Therefore, theoretically, you can add graphics to your heart’s content.

I suspect that there is still some corruption in the document. What happens if you try to create another drawing object in a different spot on the document? If that cures it, then perhaps you need to get rid of a larger area than you did previously. With so many graphics, saving as .rtf will still be problematic, as you’ve noted previously.

If the above doesn’t cure it, maybe there is something interfering with the way Word is creating drawing objects. You should then try the steps listed in post 197827.
Hope this helps,

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Just thought I’d report back. It’s fixed!

I tried to do cut and paste into bits – but all the bits seemed confused so I simply gave up without adding another graphic. That would have been the end of it if I hadn’t had to change colours and subsequently triggered another severe lockup. I really was stuck having to find a cure

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…932&Product=wrd%5B/url%5D provided a handy little document.

My first step was to try Word’s “Open & Repair” of the Open dialogue – it found three errors and “fixed” them

Next I tried their suggestion of cut-and-paste everything but the last paragraph mark ({Ctrl/End} followed by{Ctrl/Shift/Home} followed by Cut and Paste).
I selected and Cut fine – but the Paste to new document gave me an infinite hourglass – great, something to work with.

Now I could select a little bit, try Cut and Paste, test, if OK, grow the selection a little bit.

I did that, and in an hour had isolated all the graphics that were causing trouble – I suspect that they were copies of one bad one that had been pasted throughout the document.

I fixed them all – then did the Cut and Paste of the whole document to a new document (without its last paragraph mark).

The file size dropped from 2.6MB to 700KB – that was a fairly large paragraph mark!

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Thanks for reporting back. It’s always good to know what worked…and what didn’t.

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Thanks for reporting back. It’s always good to know what worked…and what didn’t.

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Just thought I’d report back. It’s fixed!

I tried to do cut and paste into bits – but all the bits seemed confused so I simply gave up without adding another graphic. That would have been the end of it if I hadn’t had to change colours and subsequently triggered another severe lockup. I really was stuck having to find a cure

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…932&Product=wrd%5B/url%5D provided a handy little document.

My first step was to try Word’s “Open & Repair” of the Open dialogue – it found three errors and “fixed” them

Next I tried their suggestion of cut-and-paste everything but the last paragraph mark ({Ctrl/End} followed by{Ctrl/Shift/Home} followed by Cut and Paste).
I selected and Cut fine – but the Paste to new document gave me an infinite hourglass – great, something to work with.

Now I could select a little bit, try Cut and Paste, test, if OK, grow the selection a little bit.

I did that, and in an hour had isolated all the graphics that were causing trouble – I suspect that they were copies of one bad one that had been pasted throughout the document.

I fixed them all – then did the Cut and Paste of the whole document to a new document (without its last paragraph mark).

The file size dropped from 2.6MB to 700KB – that was a fairly large paragraph mark!

Reply | Quote

Hi Andrew:
There shouldn’t be a limitation of the number of graphics (although, as a practical matter, it is limited by memory, speed of operating system, etc.). I couldn’t find the article for Word 2002, but there is article for Word 2000 called Operating Parameters & Specifications. The maximum size of a document is 32MB, excluding graphics. Therefore, theoretically, you can add graphics to your heart’s content.

I suspect that there is still some corruption in the document. What happens if you try to create another drawing object in a different spot on the document? If that cures it, then perhaps you need to get rid of a larger area than you did previously. With so many graphics, saving as .rtf will still be problematic, as you’ve noted previously.

If the above doesn’t cure it, maybe there is something interfering with the way Word is creating drawing objects. You should then try the steps listed in post 197827.
Hope this helps,

Reply | Quote

Just a report back – I’ve got it under control now

I cut the document as Phil suggested and eventually found a drawing shape about half way down page three that triggered the behavior. Delete the element, all sweetness and light, add it – lock-up. This element was the LAST shape added to the document (timewise, not layoutwise)

Terrific – fixed, or so I thought.

Whichever way I approach it I have not been able to re-add a drawing element where I want it. Each time I add one, I trigger the same lockup. I’m starting to assume that there is a pragmatic limit to the number of drawing elements that the document will support.
I estimate this document contains around 120 elements – although I haven’t counted.

I can manage a work-around, now that I know what I’m up against (next week). Although suggestions over the weekend would also help .
Does anyone know of a limit to drawing elements or is it likely to still be a corruption in my document that an rtf may be required to cure?
Could I change behaviour by grouping some elements?

Reply | Quote

Hi Andrew:
If this is the only document that this is ocurring to, it sounds like corruption. Why don’t you copy 1/2 of the document to a new doc & try to print. If it prints OK, save it & copy 1/2 of the remaining 7 pages. Continue doing this until it hangs. Then close it without saving. Copy & paste a smaller portion. This way, you may find the corruption & only need to redo a small portion of your 14 page document.
Hope this helps,

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