Hello,

First post ever here, so hope I'm posting in the right place.

I've recently had a recurring crazy thing happen in MS Word 2003 where all of a sudden the cursor will, on its own, start scrolling line-by-line to the top of the document. Nothing I do will stop it (hitting ESC, clicking with mouse in the document, frantically pressing function keys). It happens so fast that I can barely see the cursor, which kind of jumps around between words as it moves up the page. The open book icon on the Word status bar is in motion--the little pencil is scribbling--the whole time.



When it gets to the top, the cursor disappears, leaving the program frozen. If I navigate away from the open word document, I can't even get BACK to it (clicking on the word icon from the Windows menu does nothing). I have to close Word though task manager and then reopen to recover documents.

It MIGHT happen when I hit a certain keystroke combination, but I haven't been able to figure it out for sure.

Anyway, this is annoying, obviously, and I've lost important work from my job (the auto-recover isn't so hot when this happens).

Has anyone heard of this/know what the heck is happening? Can it be prevented? Any way to "unfreeze" Word once it does happen?

Many thanks in advance.

Sam

The closest thing in my experience, is when Word is trying to keep track of a document whose sections have not been properly formatted. For instance, footers having been created for landscape pages that are too wide for the portrait pages, but the footer's "Same as previous page" is still on. Word keeps trying to repaginate, which can gum up the works in a similar way, if not exactly the same.

It is possible that a look in draft (normal) view will reveal something you are not seeing in page layout view.

A follow-up: I never found the answer to this and it just happened again. However, this time, I resisted doing ANYTHING in Word while the cursor/book thing was happening and instead killed time doing other things for 5-10 minutes or more. (Other times, I frantically tried to save open documents and switch between open files, etc., which seemed to overload Word and cause it to stop responding.)

My new "do-nothing" approach, on the other hand, seems to prevent the crash. After a while, I came back to Word and was able to again work in (and save) my open documents.

I'm still curious what the heck causes this--am I inadvertently hitting a shortcut key that runs some process that uses up resources? In any case, I thought others having this problem might benefit from this "solution," such as it is.

Sam

Hi Sam,

Have you tried repairing Word (Help|Detect & Repair)? Also, if particular documents are affected, it may be they've acquired some corruption. In most cases, such corruption can be rectified by inserting a new last paragraph into the document, copying all except that new last paragraph to a new document, closing the old document & saving the new one over it.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks Paul. It's been on all different documents, some new some old. I do get the idea that it happens more if I haven't restarted in a while (I know, I know). Anyway, it just happened AGAIN, but this time the crazy cursor went down instead of its usual up. I'm pretty sure I had just hit the down key right before it happened, so maybe that's a clue.

It's happened on two different keyboards today, once on the machine in question and once working remotely from home.

Oy vey. At least I'm not losing my work anymore. Thanks again.

Hi Sam,

You didn't answer the question: Have you tried repairing Word (Help|Detect & Repair)?

It might also be worthwhile checking for an updated display driver for your system.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Have to come back to this old message since I have exactly the same problem. I have done the following operations and the problem happens still once a week:
- complete reinstall of machine from scratch (Office 2010)
- updating to Office 2013

So repari does not help. Must be related to my way of using word. Might be also that the problem is only with my own templates???

What has helped is to wait and then select "End task" from Windows Task manager (not end process). This will wake up Word and give possibility to say Cancel.

Before this Word does not respond to any request and uses app. 25% CPU time.

The most likely causes of such behaviour are document corruption and/or faulty drivers for printers, display and/or mouse. If it affects only a small number of documents, document corruption is the most likely cause; other wise a faulty driver is likely.

As previously advised, corrupt documents can often be 'repaired' by inserting a new, empty, paragraph at the very end, copying everything except that new paragraph to a new document based on the same template, closing the old document and saving the new one over it.

In case it's a faulty driver, check the various makers' websites for updated drivers. Faulty font files can also be an issue, but they're much harder to isolate.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Just to say I have the exact same problem (Windows 8 / Office 2010). The computer is new and the software fairly recently downloaded.

My issue is always with a single file. I've tried copying all but the last para of the doc into a new file, then saving that. Hope it works and thanks for the tip.

I am using Microsoft Word 2010 in Windows 7.

I have this same problem occasionally and I have noticed that it is triggered when I accidentally hold a key down a little to long, and type several of the same characters in a row, for example if by mistake I type: "Executiveeeee Summary" then the cursor shoots uncontrollably to the top of the document and the screen freezes.

The solution I have discovered is that, if I press control+alt+delete and open the task manager, then click on "end task" Word prompts me before it actually does close the Word program. At that prompt, I can cancel the request and it unfreezes Word and sends me back to the document. This has worked for me repeatedly.

In that case, you may have a problem with Word itself. Have you tried repairing the Office installation (via Start > Windows Control Panel > Programs > Programs & Features > Microsoft Office (version) > Change)?

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]