Word (WordPDE module) crashes every time when Print->Save as PDF
b.c.@officeformac.com
I have an annoying problem with Word 2008 crashing every time immediately when I go File -> Print... -> Save as PDF...
the error box that pops up says:
"Microsoft Word has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."
if you click on the More Information button, the error report begins with:
Microsoft Error Reporting log version: 2.0
Error Signature:
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS
Date/Time: 2009-11-26 07:08:53 -0800
Application Name: Microsoft Word
Application Bundle ID: com.microsoft.Word
Application Signature: MSWD
Application Version: 12.2.3.091001
Crashed Module Name: WordPDE
Crashed Module Version: 12.2.3.091001
Crashed Module Offset: 0x00001ebd
Blame Module Name: WordPDE
Blame Module Version: 12.2.3.091001
Blame Module Offset: 0x00001ebd
Application LCID: 1033
Extra app info: Reg=en Loc=0x0409
... (I can post further details of the error dump later, if that's useful)
here are further details, observations and things I've tried:
- Microsoft Word 2008 is the only app that has the problem printing to PDF. for example, in Excel 2008 this seems to work just fine. I can also print to PDF from Preview.app. It seems to be unique to Word 2008
- the problem happens on a new iMac (Core i7) running Snow Leopard 10.6.2
- the user files and applications on this new iMac were transferred over from an older iMac (Core 2 Duo) using the Migration Assistant. Everything else on this new iMac seems to run fine. The problem did not occur on the older C2D iMac running the same software
- the crash occurs whether I use a brand new blank document or an existing document containing text.
- it doesn't seem to be isolated to a single user on the iMac
- I do not have the problem on a MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) also running OS X 10.6.2 and same version of Word
- the problem suddenly started a few days ago, it was working last week on this new iMac
- I tried deleting then re-installing Office 2008, the problem did not go away. I've also run the Office Updater and applied the several updates. I seem to be running the latest version of Office v12.2.3
- I tried deleting all the various user preference files, Microsoft User Data folder, cache files etc that I could find in each user's home/Library director or home/Documents directory - the problem persists.
- I've run Disk Utilities - Repair Permissions - the problem persists
- I noticed on odd case where SOMETIMES it won't crash when I save to PDF: In the print dialog box, instead of simply pressing the PDF popup to select Save to PDF... - if I first select the popup in the middle of the print dialog that normally says Copies and Pages and switch that to Microsoft Word, then click on the "Word Options.." button, *sometimes* checking/unchecking an option there first will then let me successfully save to PDF
- the first time I re-installed Office 2008, somehow the Arial font got disabled by the installer. not sure why or if this is relevant (just wondering if somehow fonts have something to do with the PDF problem?)
- the only other major things I've installed on this iMac in the past week are: a re-install of Adobe Photoshop CS3 (to associate this machine with my license#), and re-install of some Epson printer drivers.
Q:is there any interaction with Word PDF generation and Adobe software or the installed printer drivers? anyhow this is still odd because as I mentioned Excel 2008 works
I think that's everything I've observed so far.
can anybody help me figure out what's wrong and try to fix this?
thanks in advance for any help
CyberTaz
I have a feeling that the use of Migration Assistant is where the problem
originated even though it may not have surfaced immediately. MA is infamous
for not playing nice with Office due to the complex issues involved... And
it's often Word that exhibits the problems. If you did "delete" Office
rather than using the Remove Office utility I'm afraid you only wasted your
time. It may be necessary to go that route but try these ideas first;
Word is highly dependent on your default printer. Try setting a different
printer as the default to see if it makes any difference. Also, be sure any
drivers are fully updated - check the mfr's site to be sure.
It could also be a font issue - they have been rampant with Snow Leopard so
I wouldn't rule that out. Run Font Book's Validate Fonts & Resolve
Duplicates routines then restart to see if that clears the matter.
Respond with your results. If none of this helps there are a few other
things to try before doing a Remove & Install.
HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac
On 11/27/09 1:04 PM, in article 59bad...@webcrossing.JaKIaxP2ac0,
b.c.@officeformac.com
thanks for your quick reply
I didn't realize there was a Remove Office utility, I had simply deleted the application folder and whatever user/settings files I knew of. I'll keep that in mind - hopefully I don't every have to resort to removing Office next time :)
your comment about Word being highly dependent on the default printer driver struck me as being very interesting, I hadn't thought of checking that while debugging this problem.
I believe I may have an older pre-Snow Leopard printer driver still installed, it might have been the default - even though I know for sure I installed a later SL-compatible one on this machine. I do have a few different printers connected and installed on this Mac
so I just did a quick check (via remote login to my iMac, I want to test again more fully when I get home) - when I changed the selected printer before I click on the Save to PDF button, it didn't crash this time. so I think your comment about the default printer driver is the key here. as I said, I want to more fully confirm this when I get home, and double check what other drivers are installed, and I'll report back here hopefully with a final conclusion
one more thing - I did resolve duplicate fonts in Font Book, there seemed to be a handful of them, mostly Office fonts I think (I've upgraded through several versions of Office on my prior iMac, I think there's some very old versions of fonts from those)
but if I run Validate Fonts I notice a number of "minor problems found" with some fonts marked with a yellow exclamation mark. many of these fonts with minor problems again seem to be MS Office standard fonts, e.g. some of the Arial variants, Verdana, etc
I'm not sure if this has anything to do with my crashing problem, but while I'm at it I figure it wouldn't hurt to clean those up.
Q: should I delete all those fonts marked with minor errors, and if so, what's the correct procedure to reinstall them? (I'm talking just the MS Office fonts, of course)
thanks again for your help. I will double check my printer drivers and default printer again when I get home and confirm that's the cause
CyberTaz
your current status.
The "minor problems" usually revolve around the duplication. In Font Book
you can expand a report on each one to see exactly what the problem is
suspected of being. My policy is that if it's anything more than a
duplication issue I remove (or at least disable) the font in question. If
that happens to be the only installed copy you can reinstall if it's a font
you actually need. The source may be either your OS X System DVD, or one of
your application source disks -- it just depends on where the font came from
in the first place. Of course, there may be some that you installed
individually, so hopefully you still have the original to install from.
Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac
On 11/27/09 3:47 PM, in article 59bad...@webcrossing.JaKIaxP2ac0,
Jose Galdamez
from Word 2008. Every time I try Print->PDF->Save as PDF, Word chokes
and brings up the crash dialog. Based on what was said here, I removed
Office 2008 using the Remove Office app. Once that was done I
reinstalled from scratch using my install disk, and ran the latest SP1
and SP2 updates immediately after. None of this helped.
I also happen to have the Adobe PDFMaker toolbar installed, but it
does absolutely nothing when I click on its buttons. To be honest, I'm
not even sure where the toolbar came from. Does it come with Office or
does Adobe Reader install it?
I am running on Snow Leopard OS 10.6.2. I was originally running MS
Office 2004 under Leopard, but I formatted the hard drive, installed a
clean copy of Leopard followed by a clean copy of Snow Leopard. From
there I used the Time Machine to restore all the files in my home
directory. I did not use Time Machine to restore any apps. Those I put
back one by one using installers. I did not reinstall Office 2004 and
went straight to Office 2008.
I did notice a couple of weeks ago that there were a hoard of
duplicate fonts screwing things up for Safari. I manually deleted all
the duplicates. After reinstalling Office 2008 an hour ago, the
duplicates came back.
Interestingly enough, the following still work
Print->PDF->Mail PDF
Print->PDF->Save as PDF-X
Print->PDF->Save PDF to iPhoto
Print->PDF->Save PDF to Web Receipts Folder
This one throws errors also
Print->PDF->Print to postcript
I recorded a screencast of the errors using Jing. I can send a link
via private email if you are interested.
Jose
On Nov 27, 5:43 pm, CyberTaz <onlygeneralt...@com.cast.net> wrote:
> Sounds like you're on the road to recovery :-) Thanks for posting back with
> your current status.
>
> The "minor problems" usually revolve around the duplication. In Font Book
> you can expand a report on each one to see exactly what the problem is
> suspected of being. My policy is that if it's anything more than a
> duplication issue I remove (or at least disable) the font in question. If
> that happens to be the only installed copy you can reinstall if it's a font
> you actually need. The source may be either your OS X System DVD, or one of
> your application source disks -- it just depends on where the font came from
> in the first place. Of course, there may be some that you installed
> individually, so hopefully you still have the original to install from.
>
> Regards |:>)
> Bob Jones
> [MVP] Office:Mac
>
> On 11/27/09 3:47 PM, in article 59badb6...@webcrossing.JaKIaxP2ac0,
>
>
>
> "b...@officeformac.com" <b...@officeformac.com> wrote:
> > hi Bob
>
> > thanks for your quick reply
>
> > I didn't realize there was a Remove Office utility, I had simply deleted the
> > application folder and whatever user/settings files I knew of. I'll keep that
> > in mind - hopefully I don't every have to resort to removing Office next time
> > :)
>
> > your comment about Word being highly dependent on the default printer driver
> > struck me as being very interesting, I hadn't thought of checking that while
> > debugging this problem.
>
> > I believe I may have an older pre-Snow Leopard printer driver still installed,
> > it might have been the default - even though I know for sure I installed a
> > later SL-compatible one on this machine. I do have a few different printers
> > connected and installed on this Mac
>
> > so I just did a quick check (via remote login to my iMac, I want to test again
> > more fully when I get home) - when I changed the selected printer before I
> > click on the Save toPDFbutton, it didn'tcrashthis time. so I think your
b.c.@officeformac.com
I can confirm the crashing when saving to PDF occurs only when I have an older pre-Snow Leopard driver selected in the initial Print dialog box.
of course if the default printer is set to one with the pre-SL driver, that's what appears when the Print dialog first show up. but strictly speaking it doesn't seem to matter what the default printer is --it's the printer that selected before you click on the PDF->Save to PDF popup that can cause the problem. if the selected printer driver is pre-SL, then the crash occurs. I didn't realize that the printer selection would matter when printing to PDF, but hey I learned something new!
thanks also Bob for your additional info about fonts. I took a closer look and most of the minor errors do seem to just be duplications, and those have been disabled, I think I'll just leave them disabled rather than deleting them.
my question about reinstalling fonts was specifically whether there was a recommended/easy way to just reinstall the MS Office fonts - to make sure I have the full & latest set of those. or can they just be manually copied from the Office install disc. if you have any suggestion about that please let me know.
otherwise, my PDF crashing problem is solved, thanks again for your help