For the last six months or so I have been experiencing two frustrating
problems when using Web Layout View in Word on large documents.
First issue, the ability to navigate within the documents
using Document Map gets corrupted. If I
click on an entry in the Document Map Window, the program cannot navigate to the
correct spot within my document. Most of
the time the cursor merely stays on the table of contents. Sometimes, the whole
window having the contents of the document just goes white. If I switch to Print Layout view, the file
seems to get reset and the cursor moves to the correct section within my document. Same thing happens with searches for a word in
the document using the Find command. The
program acts as if it found the term, but the cursor is nowhere near the term
when looking at the document in Web Layout View. Switching to Print Layout, resets whatever points
the cursor to the proper place.
Second, annoying issue, when having multiple large documents
open in Web Layout View, sometimes when I begin typing to add text to the
document, the view resets the vertical position such that the text lines quickly move
up or down, and reset their position on the display screen (sort of like a bounce). It can do this for something as small as
inserting a single space into a paragraph I am trying to edit. What is even more bizarre, if I have
multiple large documents open side by side (so I can see each clearly), when I
click in one document to add text, the other document goes through the vertical
readjustment. As with the first issue, if
I switch to Print Layout View, I do not see what I call the "vertical bounce."
What makes this perplexing is that it does not happen all
the time, but it happens with enough frequency to be very annoying as I try do
my work.
I have also split my large Word files (over 1MB in size and
several hundred pages in length if printed out) into 2 or 3 files in hopes that
this would reduce the frequencies of the problem. I cannot say that it has, but making the
files smaller has reduced the frequency of the document freezing and having a “not
responding” error. My large documents (individual
chapters of a legal text book) can easily have 50 or more Document Map entries
that are created with heading styles of levels of 1 to 5. They have all been
updated to .docx. My documents do not contain
any pictures, charts, hyperlinks, endnotes (and only an occasional footnote); it is just text, formatted with styles. While the issues happen mostly with large
documents, they also can happen to a small file of only 20 or so pages
(although when this happens I usually have one or more large Word docs also open
at the same time)
I have been using Word for over 20 years. While not a
computer specialist by any means, I know how Word usually operates within the realm
I use it. I cannot remember when I first
experienced this problem, but it probably has been within the last year. The issue is very annoying since having the
ability to have the text flow on the screen and not deal with page breaks in
Print Layout View makes my work much easier.
Hence, this a feature I heavily rely on.
Any Microsoft agent willing to talk to me so I can send some
files in the hopes that the problem can be reproduced for its tech team and a solution found?
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