Microsoft Office Word: Basic problem solving tools for when unexpected things happen

Just like many other trades and professions, the Microsoft Office Word support engineer uses a basic set of tools on a daily basis. But while carpenters, cooks, gardeners, and auto mechanics might use physical tools to solve problems, the Word support engineer's basic tools are a set of Microsoft Knowledge Base articles related to Word.

• 259413 "How to troubleshoot problems that may occur when you start or work in Word 2000, in Word 2002, and in Word 2003" at https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;259413
• 826864 "How to troubleshoot damaged Word documents" at https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;826864
• 316951 "How to recover a lost Word document" at https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;316951

These three Knowledge Base articles are the basic tools that we use on a daily basis to solve or narrow down most of the unexpected problems that a person might encounter with Word.
 
KB 259413 "How to troubleshoot problems that may occur when you start or work in Word 2000, in Word 2002, and in Word 2003"
When I first started working as a support engineer for Word, I literally kept a printed copy of KB 259413 next to my computer so that I could refer to it in the event that our support center might experience network connectivity issues while I was on the phone with a customer. Only recently did I discard that coffee-stained, dried-paper copy of the article.
 
KB 259413 includes information about how to recognize when a printer driver, antivirus software, a damaged file, a damaged Normal.dot template, damaged registry keys, a Word customization, a video driver, a damaged Office DLL file, or a non-essential service might be causing Word to behave badly.
 
A carpenter might pick a hammer and a cook might pick a good cutting knife, but if I were to pick a single tool to help me with my job, KB 259413 is the one.
 
KB 826864 "How to troubleshoot damaged Word documents"
Files of any kind can become damaged. Complicated files that you open and modify again and again stand a higher chance of becoming damaged. Backing up your files on a regular basis is always a good idea.
 
Fortunately, it is usually possible to recover some or most of the content in a damaged Word document, or in the very least the text from the document. KB 826864 walks you through how to recover a damaged document.
 
316951 "How to recover a lost Word document"
If you do your work on a laptop, it's less likely that you will ever need to recover a lost document. A "lost document" means exactly what it says: the document is lost and you can't find it. This can happen if you're working on a document and then suddenly the power goes out or something unfortunate happens that causes Word to quit. KB 316951 will help you to find the AutoRecover and temporary files that might have been created for the lost document before the document became lost.
 
If you’re not frequently saving changes to your document, however, it’s highly unlikely that you will be able to recover the lost document. Save your work frequently and back up your files.

Author for the post: - Ryan Christiansen

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  When I copy a doc from Ultimate Guitar Tabs and attempt to copy it onto a blank word (2007) pg the back ground is black. How do I change to plain white background?

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  When I copy a doc from Ultimate Guitar Tabs and attempt to copy it onto a blank word (2007) pg the back ground is black. How do I change to plain white background?

• Anonymous
  April 16, 2012
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  July 20, 2012
  i do not write in my microsoft word 2007.please solve my problem.

• Anonymous
  September 08, 2012
  The word 2010 becomed non responsive moment I press the enter key or try to use copy paste

• Anonymous
  September 12, 2012
  My microsoft word 2010 starter will not open for me and i am working o some major projects at this moment. It keeps giving me the "can not be opened. try again or repair the product in control panel

• Anonymous
  September 19, 2012
  Am having problems opening the hyperlinks on my Word 2010. I get an error message telling me to contact the administrator. I am the admin. What do I do??

• Anonymous
  November 26, 2012
  I can opened the excel in sky drive.live

• Anonymous
  January 03, 2013
  I am trying to open a word doc that was saved as a microsoft word 97 - 2003 doc. When I try to open these files now I keep getting this message "Microsoft Word Starter 2010 Cannot be opened. Try again or repair the product in control panel. I have tried downloading updates and I still keep getting this message.

• Anonymous
  January 14, 2013
  When I open previous typed letters from MS Word 2003 it changes the dated to the current date. How do I stop it from doing this and keep the current date it was typed?

• Anonymous
  February 11, 2013
  i cannot insert page numbers at all please help

• Anonymous
  February 18, 2013
  How do I solve the "NULL IDispatch passed to Autowrap()" error in Word?

• Anonymous
  August 05, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  October 25, 2013
  Each and every letter of the alphabet is partially chopped at the top and bottom.

• Anonymous
  November 26, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 02, 2014
  try to send me an email to solve your problem
  

• Anonymous
  June 02, 2014
  try to send me an email to solve your problem
  

• Anonymous
  October 18, 2014
  i have some problem in Ms office but i can't solved it . unfortunately my some data or information change in different language. so its trouble for me, because this data or information very important for me.