Uninstalling Office 2011 (Strange problem of disappearing text)

[g1za]

How would i go about uninstalling Office 2011 across a network as i want to try and reinstall it.

We have a really odd issue where users are experiencing the loss of text and work when using Microsoft Word/PowerPoint.

It happens both when creating new documents and also working from existing docs.

So i'm thinking of reinstalling Office in the hope that it gets fixed.

Thanks in anticipation!

[mm2270]

Before you go about uninstalling Office across all your Macs, I would hope you plan on testing the theory out of uninstall/reinstall on a couple of affected systems to verify it fixes the issue. I would also look around on the web for any similar posts on this issue. It could be a known problem with a more light-handed resolution. Also, what version of Office are you using? You might want to update at least one system to the latest release as well to see if it addresses the problem.
Lastly, how was Office installed? I've seen odd issues when using the Composer capture approach, but generally never see issues if just using the install package as is in imaging or via policy.

That said, in Casper you can index a package in Casper Admin, such as the Office install one. After that, you have the option of choosing "Uninstall" as one of the options in a policy, in addition to Install, Cache and Install Cached.
However, in some cases the uninstall option leaves some remnants behind. Especially true if the application has been updated and some new components are now in the application folder.

You may want to also look at this post from William Smith on his blog about using an uninstall script for Office. I've used his script a number of times and it works perfectly to completely remove Office from a target Mac.
http://www.officeformachelp.com/office/install/remove-office/

[g1za]

Yes i have been trying out on an effected client and i'm really stumped on this one. I've uninstalled and reinstalled, then updated to service pack 3 and then to the latest update.
Yet still i have the same issue.

[talkingmoose]

Reinstalling most any software rarely does much good. Most issues are with user preferences.

You may want to post your issue in Microsoft's Community forums about the missing text. Whenever I hear of multiple applications and multiple users being affected I usually check for font and document issues first. Possibly rebooting your Macs in Safe mode (Shift key during boot) to clear font caches will clear the problem.

[g1za]

I've tried clearing the font cache and also deleting the com.microsoft.word plist's

Still having the same issue

I'll have a look on the Microsoft forums too.

Thanks

[bentoms]

Are these large documents?

I've a 120 slide PowerPoint I've been working on in PowerPoint & have internittently had a similar issue.

Maybe it's a 14.3.6 issue?

[g1za]

No it's any documents.
I'm totally stumped now.

Tried lots of troubleshooting and nothing has worked.

[acdesigntech]

Hi g1za, let's go back to basics here:

What's the exact issue? Garbled text, can't save a document, etc? Can you described in more detail?

is it every single person experiencing this problem? Is it every Mac that's having the problem? - i.e.: are you able to recreate the same issue on your Mac? Have you been able to verify the issue on another user's Mac? More to the above - is the problem only with one document, or any document you try to use? i.e.: is there some common denominator here?

Have you taken the user profile out of the equation? i.e.: logged into a Mac that is having the issue as a new user that does not already have a home folder, or better yet, create a test user account on that machine, fired up office and then seen the same issue?

Can you also describe what troubleshooting steps you've taken thus far?

[#9]

Did you install any custom fonts? Does the same issue occur if you login as a brand-new user? Are you using Portable Home Directories or anything similar?

[g1za]

Thanks for all your comments Managed to get a resolution and find that the original Office package had become corrunpted somehow. Starting a fresh with the latest package and updates seems to of fixed it (fingers crossed)

[dderusha]

I'd focus on the fonts in /Library/Fonts/Microsoft
If these fonts are not there.....office will misbehave. If we excluded these fonts, Outlook would work, but we could not modify the type. If we bolded our signature the text would disappear. if we changed the type size, the text would disappear.