Any PC gurus know anything about Word?

[Beemer]

Word was loaded on my PC when I bought it and apart from the odd crash, I've had no trouble with it. Until recently, that is, when it's come up with some odd error messages and other problems while spell-checking.

The first one says something about not being able to find the grammar file German something or other (not that I would expect it to, I was checking an English document!). And it also prompted me to insert the Publisher 2002 disk, followed by the Word 2000 SR-1 disks the other day - which I did.

Yesterday it played up when adding new words to the dictionary. I'm proofing some documents at present that contain quite a few Maori words and I usually double-check them in a dictionary and then add them as the spell-checker picks them up. All fine and dandy, but for some reason it's not working properly. I already had the word Maori added long ago, but it keeps coming up with that word (and the version with an accent, likewise with whenua and other common words) and despite adding it again each time, the next time I open the document or add the word to an existing document, it underlines it again.

And just now it stopped on the word Barnardos and I went to click 'add' but the selection was greyed out. I remember there used to be a way of going in and adding words to the dictionary but I can't find it under any of the tools options.

In addition, it crashed and sent an error message off to Microsoft so there must be a problem. It WOULD have to happen now... just when I've got a shit load of editing work to do this week! Anyone know what's going on and how to fix it?

[Biohazard]

Have you tried running repair on word, normally go to add/remove progs then select remove and choose the repair function and see what that does, word tends to slap itself aboit and get dazed now and then.

[ZeroIndex]

Any PC gurus know anything about Word?

....yes

[Gremlin]

I have 2003, so some options may be different.

First up, all the office programs should have a menu option under "help", inside each program called "Detect and Repair", which errr, should do exactly that. You should be prompted at some point to insert the original disc, as it, iirc, replaces all the msi files or something, so needs the originals, naturally.

For the custom dictionary, if 2000 is the same as 2003, Tools > Options > Spelling & Grammar. There will be a button called "Custom Dictionaries".

One of your last resorts may be rolling back your computer with System Restore (if you have it) to a time before the problems started.

On an interesting side note, my laptop played up on me last night, suddenly thinking I like German, and wondering why it can't find it (interesting you also have the same problem eh?) and deciding I no longer need the language settings shortcut in the start menu, so can't fix it. Didn't have a go last night, as I was busy with highly valuable university stuff.

Will have to get onto it shortly...

[Beemer]

Love you too, Zero Index... NOT!

Weird shit about the German stuff butting in - made me wonder if it was a virus or something.

I did a repair but nothing changed, so I went to the download site and downloaded a big fat update, hopefully that will solve most of the problems. As for the custom dictionary, pardon my blondeness tonight, but how do you get it to work? I hit the 'add' button but every time I open a new document and type the same words, they are underlined again. I went into tools, options, spelling and grammar and hit the custom dictionaries tab but all it seemed to do is create a dictionary folder but I can't figure out how to get the words into it! Help!

Disregard that - found a "Shortcuts in Word 2000" book I bought but never got around to reading... funnily enough, it tells you how to add entries to the dictionary... off to stand in the corner now!

[Gremlin]

Click the Custom Dictionaries button
When the box opens up with Custom dic highlighted and checked, on the right, click modify, as you want to add to the existing custom dic, not create a new one.
Then type in your word at the top, and click add at the bottom. The Ok your way out of there...

edit... you got it... nvm then...

[Hitcher]

Another Word quirk that can throw your custom dictionary is the choice of English in your document. I use NZ English, but sometimes, particularly when cutting and pasting, this can revert to US English, along with changing your paper size to US letter and your page margins to inches (or equivalent). If US English isn't the default language you created (for your normal.dot file), then your custom dictionary will query a whole bunch of words you thought you had previously accepted.

[Gremlin]

Hitcher, in newer editions, XP on, I think, there was an additional feature that loaded into the programs menu under microsoft office, called language settings.

Mind you, I did spend a couple of days forcing all the settings to what I wanted... but the language and regional settings should help.

It does really like US English. When I find my settings, iirc, you are able to remove languages from the ones you can check, so I removed everything except UK and NZ English.

Oh, if you hate the z in words like realize... you have to set it to autocorrect. There are quite a few

[Hitcher]

Oh, if you hate the z in words like realize... you have to set it to autocorrect. There are quite a few

Why bother? Just type them properly the first time...

[Skyryder]

If you have a disc reload word. If not I think you can download from microsoft site. You will need your reg number. Been a while since I have do to this. Disc is the easiest option.

Skyryder

[ZeroIndex]

Love you too, Zero Index... NOT!

sorry bout that.. the title was just asking for it

hope you manage to get that sorted out

[What?]

What Skyrider said, but make sure you do a thorough virus scan first. Also, uninstall Word before re-loading (that means remove Word from your programme files, not just "Remove Programmes" function).

Consider upgrading to 2003 - 2000 will often go weird if you use it to open a document that was created in 2003, especially if it contains macros.

[Beemer]

Thanks everyone, it seems to be working fine now (fingers crossed!) but I will eventually buy Office 2003 as I want Excel and a few other bits and pieces. While I have a student card I intend to make the most of it to upgrade my software (Photoshop was the first!) and then I can leave behind all these problems!

I'll let you off, ZeroIndex!

[Biohazard]

Um *cough cough peer to peer cough*