Word is Repaginating....over and over and....

Question

I've had Word 2007 for a little over 6 months and it has worked fine for me. I use it on both my desktop and my notebook. I keep a journal in Word and have done so for many years. I keep volumes by the year and they usually average about 500-600 pages. I keep my current journal document on a flash drive and open the document and write in Word on both my desktop and my notebook so my journal is truly portable.

Recently I've encountered a weird problem that I've never seen before...When I open my journal on my desktop, it opens as always, but then the hourglass appears and the message appears at the bottom of the screen....

"Word is repaginating 2007 journal.docx." and then it runs through all the page numbers. The hourglass changes to the arrow momentarily, but then it goes back to the hourglass as the repaginating starts all over again.... over and over. I can't get it to quit doing it so I can write! If I hit the Esc key it stops, but then it displays in Draft Layout. If I try to put it back into Print Layout, back it goes to the repaginating!

It only does this on my desktop... Word on my laptop is just fine and works normally.

I've tried a "Repair" and I tried to find the normal template to delete it, but I cannot find it, even with a search.

Thanks in advance....

abach · Answer

Unfortunately, you cannot turn off auto pagination in Print Layout view. So, it must be caused by something that is different on your desktop.   Try this:   Do not use your flash drive to edit. Copy the file to your hard drive, save it to your My Documents folder with Word (or another folder of your choice), then copy it to your flash drive (do not save it to the flash drive) by using Windows Explorer.   Also, Click Start, Run then type the following:   %temp%   and click OK. Delete as many of the files as possible.   If you need to delete the normal.dotx, or normal.dotm you should be able to find it by clicking Start, Run and typing the following:   %userprofile%\application data\microsoft	emplates   Delete all instances of normal, the restart Word.

Julzie · Answer

Thank you, Alan! I'll try it!

Julzie · Answer

Ummm.... Alan?

I tried all of your suggestions.

And they did not help at all. The behavior is the same.

Would it help if I reinstalled Office? If so, should I do a delete of the program and then the reinstall? What else can I do? Fortunately, my laptop is still acting normally so I can write... but I'd like to fix my desktop!

Thanx!

abach · Answer

Try running the Office diagnostics. In Word, Office Button, Word Options, Resources, run Office Diagnostics.   Let me know if this does not help.

Julzie · Answer

Thank you, Alan, for helping me out.

I ran Office Diagnostics. It found no problems. Word is acting squirrelly on other files as well now... the hourglass keeps coming up.... and going off and on, rather like files can't make up their mind if they're gonna open all the way or not! :-(

I've been trying to think of anything I've added or done differently recently and I can't.

abach · Answer

You may have an anti-virus program scanning Office files. If so, turn the feature off.

Rebel9 · Answer

Hi julzie,   You might want to take a look and follow the troubleshooting steps in this article.

Julzie · Answer

Gee, I'm a pain, I know.... How do I turn off scanning of Office files in McAfee? I've been all over the place and can't find how to do that.

Julzie · Answer

Aaughh!! Nothing is helping! Would a total uninstall of Office 2007 and then a reinstall help?

Rebel9 · Answer

julzie, Please read my last post again. I edited it.

Julzie · Answer

Okay. Thanks. Thanks, all, for all the help. Sincerely Yours, Desperate.

Rebel9 · Answer

'Would a total uninstall of Office 2007 and then a reinstall help?'   Most likely!  WAIT - maybe not.   If this is happening with just the one document, there are a few other steps that you might try first.   Open the file and then 'save as' - then save the file as a .txt file. Open the (original) file again and save it as an .rtf (rich text format) file. Open each one of these files in turn and resave as a Word file. Does the repagination stop?   As well, you mention saving the file to your hard drive and to a flash drive. How are you doing this? There have been problems reported when Saving a file to a flash drive. Saving the file to the hard drive and then COPYING the file to the flash drive seems to have solved the problem (at least in the cases I have read about). Message Edited by Rebel9 on 12-27-2007 02:37 PM

Julzie · Answer

Thank you all for all the help... or, I guess I should say, your efforts to help.

I've tried a Repair... I deleted the normal template and I have gone through all the recommended fixes on the Microsoft website from here...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921541/en-us

I tried saving my journal to the hard drive instead of my flash drive, and then copying the file to the flash drive. I've tried a different flash drive too. I ran msconfig to get rid of unnecessary start-up programs. I've also done numerous virus, spyware, and malware scans, including Windows One Care. I deleted a whole pile of fonts that I didn't need, thinking that they might be messing it up somehow. But it did no good. Nothing helps! Finally, in desperation, I totally uninstalled MS Office 2007. After rebooting several times, I reinstalled it... and the behavior remains the same.

It's not just my journal. Other files are quirky as well. Even one-page Word documents- both .doc and .docx- do weird things. If they don't do the repaginating thing, they do a typing delay, much like I've seen described here. Only those fixes don't work or do not apply.

As I said, Word 2007 on my laptop behaves just fine, even with the journal on the flash drive! It is so frustrating! Is there ANYTHING else I can do, or should I just give up? Perhaps only use my laptop? I am thinking seriously of switching to Open Office… if only it weren't for the fact that it doesn't seem to like my journaling template. I suppose I could totally re-do the template for use in Open Office, but I don't know how well all my features will work… Since I always start a new journal at the beginning of a new year, I guess if I have to make a change, now would be the time to do it… I just don't WANT to do it!

Message Edited by julzie on 12-31-2007 12:09 AM

Rebel9 · Answer

Julzie, I've sent you a private message. Look at the top of this page for 'messages' and click on the little envelope icon.

Delierious · Answer

Continuous repagination may be a symptom of a corrupted document.
See http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm.

However, that said, Word seems to handle tables in large documents badly - if you have tables, it might be an idea to convert them to text. This may lose you your formatting and you will have to decide how important this is as regards other solutions.

In the alternative, it could well be that one table is causing the problem - a tedious way round this is to

Take the whole document, cut and paste half of it into a new document.
Save than document with a name indicating what you have done, close it and re-open it -
Is there still a problem?
If so, copy half of that document and do the same -
Is there still a problem?
etc.
until there is no problem - you will then, by process of elimination - have found the offending table.

If there is no problem in the new first half, do the same with the second half of the original.

Productivity Software

Word is Repaginating....over and over and....

Was this post helpful?