Microsoft Office 2004 11.2.3 (#8): More on erroneous "disk is full" message; More on Entourage-Spotlight bug -- fix;

More on erroneous "disk is full" message We continue to report an issue where Word 2004 11.2.3 erroneously states that that the target disk is full when attempting to save files. This problem has traditionally been associated with Word's inability to deal with more than a certain number of open temporary files.

Yesterday we noted workarounds including saving files in the .rtf format instead of .doc, and quitting then re-opening Word.

Today a handful of readers report embedded object corruption as the cause of the issue.

David Steinberger writes:

"I work in Word processing and this is not a Mac-only bug. We experience it regularly on our Windows-based machines. When we experience it is usually from a corrupted object. Images, embedded Excel and PowerPoint and other non-text objects become corrupted. I find that Cutting out each object, one at a time, and trying to save, identifies the offending object. At that point, either a simple re-Paste Special or a re-embed fixes the trouble."

Anotehr reader, John, adds:

"Let me confirm the problem where Word 2004 11.2.3 repeatedly states that that the target disk is full when attempting to save files, when that is not the case. 

"In my case I was updating a math course DOC file with about 500 equations in it when an autosave cycle kicked in automatically and up popped this dreaded message. Now I use the Mathtype equation editor, not the standard equation editor that ships with Office. The Mathtype web site has a big page on this issue, and a fix. 

"It turns out that Word is still buggy when it comes to embedded objects - it has been so for me since at least Word 6 - even on the PC. It corrupts them. When trying to save the document, Word runs across this bug and issues a default error message instead of admitting which object it has corrupted. For Mathtype object corruption there is a simple fix: 'The first step is to run the MathType|Convert Equations command in Word on a suspect document (found on the MathType menu).'

More on Entourage-Spotlight bug -- fix We previously reported on a bug in the display of Entourage messages in Spotlight results on his system where the correct dates of found messages are not displayed.

This problem due to the fact that Spotlight treats a file accessed as a file modified, and changes the date to the most recent. The workaround is to click on Rebuild in the Spotlight section of Entourage preferences. The original date will be restored.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

Previous coverage:

• Microsoft Office 2004 11.2.3 (#6): More on Sync Services issues
• Microsoft Office 2004 11.2.3 (#5): Entourage database corruption
• Microsoft Office 2004 11.2.3 (#4): More Sync Services issues; Another fix for Spotlight/Entourage
• Microsoft Office 2004 11.2.3 (#3): Problems with Sync Services; Getting Spotlight to work with Entourage
• Microsoft Office 2004 11.2.3 (#2): Security vulnerabilities patched in this release; Spotlight issues; Update will not install; more
• Microsoft releases Office 2004 11.2.3

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