microsoft word displays 'too many errors' msg, but feature is off.

[birdfoot]

i'm an editor. i've scoured the web looking for an answer for this, but not too many people are talking about it, and those that are are encountering it while using spellcheck and grammar check. i'm not using those features. my version is word 2002, and i'm about to pull my hair out.

the error message begins 'there are too many spelling or grammatical errors in [name].doc.' then it advises me to turn off the check spelling/grammar, or something like that. i don't recall the second part of the error message because, like i said, those features aren't turned on (as far as i can tell) in the first place for me. i just have no use for them. what i DO use is the track changes feature. and i place many comments in the commenting pane. and above a certain threshold (about 180 single spaced pages) word will not allow me to continue to make changes to the document without clicking the error message away for each and every character i type.

obviously this ruins everything. the document must be split into two (or more). and then the final check phase that i do at the end of my process (search and replace, mostly) becomes very difficult for both myself and my client.

maybe the solution is simple, but like i said, the only posts online that i see about the issue deal specifically with grammar and spellcheck. this is not what that is, although, certainly, similar resources would be employed by the program in managing internal edits (a lot of red ink by the time i'm through) and comment-pane comments. so the real issue, ultimately, is this: if there's no way to shut this incredible annoyance off via a simple tick in a box somewhere, for both spelling/grammar AND for track changes/comments, then is it possible to increase the threshold somehow, or is there any sort of patch for this, or any true solution?

needless to say, i'd abandon word over this. it's crazy that there's nothing about it over at the microsoft site itself.

any help you could provide would be much appreciated.

D

 

[MakeItSo]

Many features are stored in the doc.
So whenever you open a (binary) DOC instead of an RTF, you open it with many options set by the autor - not with (all) of your own options.

[navy]"We had to turn off that service to comply with the CDA Bill."[/navy]
- The Bastard Operator From Hell

 

[fumei]

without clicking the error message away for each and every character i type."

Do you have (under Tools > Options > Spelling and Grammar) Check spelling as you type and Check grammar as you type checked?

If so, uncheck them. While you are not, it seems, particularly intereested in them, just Track Changes and comments, have them unchecked may make a difference.

faq219-2884

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[birdfoot]

fumei--i do not have 'check spelling and grammar as i type' checked, no.

i need to use track changes and comments, however, as those are the two features i specifically use while editing. all my work is done with track changes and comments. so those have to stay on.

makeitso--everything looks fine to my untrained eye. when authors submit a book, they never have spelling and grammar turned on, because no author wants to look at those squiggly lines as they work. i'm not sure what other options you could be talking about.

 

[tf1]

This is a weird problem and suggests a possible corruption somewhere. My suspicion is a corrupt printer driver. Try this for diagnostic purpose please. From Start, Run, type in

winword /a

and press enter. This will start Word in Safe MOde. Open one of the documents and test now to see if you can edit it without getting the error messages.

Regards: tf1

 

[birdfoot]

just tried that. but it will take a while, doing it that way, to know. the reason is that this error takes a while to show up in the first place. it seems to have something to do with the temp memory, is my guess. otherwise why would the error not show up as soon as i attempt to insert some red ink into a manuscript? instead, the document needs to be open for about half an hour first, before i get the error message. and then it occurs with every single keystroke.

obviously, there's just a threshold, a memory threshold somewhere, and it gets exceeded whether because of grammar/spelling errors or because of normal editorial insertions (which also use the 'red ink'). i don't know what the red ink stuff is, but my guess is rich text, right? and there must be a place for the program to store and handle that stuff when the document is open. after a while, that buffer gets full, and we get the error message.

there's only one error message, but it's summoned for two different things, each of which share the same source cause. a buffer overflow somewhere. the error message is phrased the way it is because 9 people out of 10 are going to run into this problem when grammar/spelling check is turned on. only editors are going to run into the overflow in a comment/internal fix scenario, as i have.

it's not a driver issue. it once happened on my other desktop machine, using a different instance of the program.

 

[MakeItSo]

the document needs to be open for about half an hour first, before i get the error message. and then it occurs with every single keystroke"

Perhaps a corrupt dictionary?

Try this: Rename the man dictionary file (usually [xxx].lex.
Then do an Office Repair installation. That will hopefully replace the dictionary file with a clean one.

[navy]"We had to turn off that service to comply with the CDA Bill."[/navy]
- The Bastard Operator From Hell

 

[tf1]

I'm not quite sure what the answer was to my simple question. Does this still happen when you start in Safe Mode?

Regards: tf1

 

[birdfoot]

ft1: i didn't get to it yet. i don't want to do my actual work in safe mode, so what i will do is open the document later tonight in safe mode and just walk away for about an hour. then i'll try to do some 'fake' work on it for about ten minutes and save it under a different file name, just to see. i'm not sure what you hope to discover with this test, but i'll try it.

makeitso: two different computers, two different word programs bought at different times, same problem, so i don't see how it could be the dictionary. it's an overload, and it's part of word. the program cannot handle all the insertions it's being asked to handle. the problem is essentially identical to what would happen if the program were being asked to display and hold in memory thousands of little red squiggly grammar and spelling lines. here, though, it's editor-inserted red capital letters, commas, semicolons, letter and phrase insertions, etc. the editorial insertions must tax the program in the same way that legions of automatic grammar and spelling errors tax the program. in both cases, word must display a lot of 'extra' stuff. the single error message that's used for both situations is the same.

the error message again is (in full this time):

'there are too many spelling or grammatical errors in [document.doc] to continue displaying them. To check the spelling and grammar of this document, choose Spelling and Grammar from the Tools menu.'

this error message isn't even listed on microsoft's error message lookup webpage, by the way, as near as i can tell.

 

[tf1]

The reason the ask you to test in Safe Mode is for diagnostic purposes. I don't want you to work forever in Safe Mode: I wouldn't even think of Safe Mode as a solution. I want to help diagnose the problem.

I don't even suspect the spelling and grammar as being the cause of this (though I wouldn't rule it out).

My gut feeling is that it is a corruption (as I mentioned) but we need to establish that Word itself is OK first by eliminating outside influences (add-in, drivers, macros, templates, etc.) before proceding down any other path.



Regards: tf1

 

[birdfoot]

but how can it possibly be a corruption if it happens on two different computers with two entirely different instances of word? i just think that would be a huge coincidence.

 

[MakeItSo]

Not a corruption of Word, but of the documents. Word docs suffer a lot from "spontaneous file corruption".
Most of it is harmless, but if the docs are as large as you say and with lots of tracked changes...
Word does have an Open and Repair feature to get rid of such corruptions.

Currently I can only propose two things:
a) browse to the doc with "File->Open", but don't open it with double click; just select it, click on the little arrow on the "Open" button and pick "Open and Repair"

b) Add a little macro that you execute before opening the doc:

Sub DisableAlerts()
Application.DisplayAlerts = wdAlertsNone
End Sub

Weird things.
180+ pages you say?
If I understood you correctly, these are scripts, so there's no fancy stuff in these docs, no tables and the like?

[navy]"We had to turn off that service to comply with the CDA Bill."[/navy]
- The Bastard Operator From Hell

 

[tf1]

Sort it yourself then. If you want help ask. If you don't want help, don't ask.


Regards: tf1

 

[fumei]

birdfoot, we are trying to help, but you are not making it easy. tf1's suggestion is a good oen to at least try. You do not seem intereested in even considering trying.

I would like to know:

1. if you are getting ANY wavy lines under anything.

In 2002, under Tools > Options > Spelling and Grammar, do you notice you can NOT turn off Writing style. the dropdown is Grammar and Spelling, or Grammar only. There is NO option to have nothing. Further, even if you change it to Grammar only, here is the partial list of things it does check.

Fragments and Run-ons, misused words, Punctuation, Questions. These are checkboxes under Setting, under Writing style (Tools > Options > Spelling and Grammar). These are separate from the Check spelling as you type, and Check grammar as you type.

Uncheck everything.

The amount of memory usage is of course dependent on the memory available. Perhaps you need to add some. It sounds like you have many things Word has to deal with.

It may be corrupt documents - as mentioned Word is prone to them. tf1's suggestion is a way of testing for some of that. Why not try?


A: "essentially identical to what would happen if the program were being asked to display and hold in memory thousands of little red squiggly grammar and spelling lines"

Not quite correct. It does not, or should not, hold them in memory. It depends on how you have Word set up to deal with repagination. If background repagination is checked, then that is what Word does. Repagination takes up resources. You may want to make background repagination = FALSE.

The point being is that if you have gobs and gobs of non-document content (Comments for example) these are stored, and repagination has to take them into account...all the time. With background repagination that means not just the current page working its way thorugh the printer driver, but all of them.

I have a serious question though, WHY do you have so many editorial items? OK, text changes I can see holding on to. But are making changes AND making comments?

Why do you hold these so much. Why not - especially for things like commas - just be done with it and Accept some changes? Once accepted, those track change objects are removed from storage and will not be retrieved for memory addressing during a repagination. Unless of course you also are using Versions. THAT will start sucking up memory iof you have gobs of things to keep track of across Versions.

I am not talking abour Revisions. Versions. They are two very different beasties.

So:

1. do you absolutely have everything unchecked under Options? Including the checked items for Grammar - even if you DO have Check grammar while typing unchecked.

2. why do you have so many unaccepted tracked changes?

3. is dumping in more memory an option? Memory is fairly inexpensive these days.

4. and what DOES happen if you try things in Safe Mode?

faq219-2884

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[dodomcsc]

I have seen this error happen before, but am not sure in Word 2002 how to correct it.

In the instances I've seen this happen, it has to do with the Language which is set for the document.

Here's how it was dealt with in the instances I've seen.

Highlight the entire document (including the ending paragraph mark). Click Tools, select Language then select Set Language. Make sure the language is set to what you use (probably English U.S.). Then make sure to check 'Do not check spelling or grammar). Click OK and see if this alleviates you getting the message about too many spelling or grammatical errors.

Just a thought......
dodomfcg

 

[birdfoot]

hey guys

sorry that i didn't get back to this thread for a few days here. i'm not trying to be difficult. it's just a communication thing. if tf1 was talking about document corruptions, then ok. that would make sense. i thought he was saying that the program was messed up.

a document corruption didn't occur to me, and that seems likely, actually.

more background info: no, there are no tables or anything like that. these are books, pre-layout, so it's just text.

under the main 'spelling and grammar' tab, in the tools menu, nothing is checked. specifically, 'check grammar as you type' is unchecked, and so is 'check grammar with spelling.' 'hide grammatical errors in this document' is checked, but it is greyed out. under 'writing style,' 'grammar' is selected in the dropdown, and on the advanced tab, all the grammar items are checked. however, it doesn't check for anything, perhaps because of the two unchecked boxes in the main panel which are telling it not to.you are saying to uncheck all that stuff, anyway?

fumei's 'ANY wavy lines question': most people who work with documents like this don't want word alerting them to mistakes, because word does not understand context and because the red squiggles are distracting. hence, i never see any of that. any document i open is as-typed. the only 'red' that ever ends up being displayed in the documents i work with is put there by me.

why i add so many comments: i do this for clients, not for myself. i fix sentences in the actual document, but a lot of times i explain why i did what i did, too, and i offer other suggestions in the comment pane. it's kind of like a writing workshop thing, and often the comments are about the narrative, not just the grammar. i can not accept any changes, because it's not up to me. it's up to the author.

repagination: thank you, that sounds like it could be something as well.

i will try the safe mode thing evevntually. maybe i'm lazy, but i'd have to work with the document for up to an hour in safe mode to judge whether it's happening, andd i wouldn't know when to quit. i never get the error message at a guaranteed time. and i don't want to do my actual work in safe mode, so i'd rather try a few other things first. there are some good ideas in this thread now.

1. can you tell me what turning off repagination will do to the document? my comments have to stay attached to the sentences. they have to stay where i put them. will turning repagination off prevent that from happening? if so, that won't be an option for me.

2. makeitso's suggestion seems good, too. is there a way to recognize visually when a document becomes corrupted? sometimes when i save or resave, i see a small pencil-on-paper icon working at the bottom of the screen, and then it 'breaks' and there's a red x. i have always wondered what that is. i would like to try makeitso's 'repair document' idea to see what that does. i don't know macros, though. can someone explain what it means to 'add a little macro?' where do i put that code, exactly?

3. tf1, not trying to be rude here. i'll get to the safe mode thing if necessary; i just wanted to try other things first...

 

[fumei]

i see a small pencil-on-paper icon working at the bottom of the screen" that IS repagination happening.

if you are getting "and then it 'breaks' and there's a red x. " then there are failures happening with repagination, and yes, the document could be corrupted, OR, Word is just overloaded.

Frankly, I do not feel you are giving this as much attention as you initially indicated was desirable. You do not answer questions, even when asked directly. And that is fine, hey it is YOUR thread. However, I am going to join tf1 and no longer pay this thread any mind.

Good luck.

faq219-2884

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[birdfoot]

but we're making progress now... the red 'x' thing seems key

i answered questions in detail, i just didn't try one thing (safe mode)yet, and there was a miscommunication on the other thing...