AW quits

[EMB]

recently my aw 6.2 has taken to quitting suddenly. I don't have trouble restarting and restoring files, but it is annoying and makes me worry that aw may soon die. Any ideas about what this might be due to and what might be done to prevent it.
thanks emb

[Peggy]

recently my aw 6.2 has taken to quitting suddenly. I don't have trouble restarting and restoring files, but it is annoying and makes me worry that aw may soon die. Any ideas about what this might be due to and what might be done to prevent it.
thanks emb

Are you using OS X? If so, is the keyboard layout (System Preferences > International > Input Menu, set to a unicode keyboard layout? AppleWorks cannot handle unicode & will quit. Change to a Roman layout & all should be well again.

[EMB]

thank you for your thoughts. I am using osx. the keyboard layout U.S.and hasn't been changed for months.
might there be another explanation for this problem.
thanks again emb

[Peggy]

thank you for your thoughts. I am using osx. the keyboard layout U.S.and hasn't been changed for months.
might there be another explanation for this problem.
thanks again emb

Even if you didn't change the keyboard layout, if you recently updated to Tiger, it will reset your keyboard layout to a Unicode one.

Possibly a corrupt font, although usually only causes problems at start up or when choosing to show fonts in actual font in preferences.

If you are only running AppleWorks 6.2, you need to update to 6.2.4 or 6.2.9. 6.2.4 is the earliest stable in OS X & 6.2.9 is the most recent. 6.2.7 is to be avoided, it was very, very buggy. You can find the 6.2.4 updater here. You can find the most reliable link to the 6.2.9 updater on this page where you can choose the appropriate updater for your AppleWorks 6 installation. Be sure to pay attention to the two English version updaters.

Whenever you do an update of AppleWorks or the system software, it's a good idea to do two maintenance tasks, one for the system (Repair Permissions) and one for AppleWorks (delete preferences). (Thanks to Barry for this way to format this very common answer.)

To Repair permissions in 10.4.x, launch Disk Utility, found in the Utilities folder in your Applications folder, click on First Aid, then on Repair Permissions.

To delete AppleWorks’ preference files, go to HD > Users > Library > Preferences. Find and delete the file com.apple.appleworks.plist. Find and open the folder AppleWorks in this Preferences folder, then delete all of the enclosed files (with the exception of the Button Bar Preferences if you have customized the Button Bars). AppleWorks will recreate the preference files as it needs them.

If you haven't updated anything recently, the likely cause is corrupt preferences. See the steps in the above paragraph.

[EMB]

sorry i didn't include more specifics. i haven't updated anything and i have 6.29, so i will follow your suggestion and delete the preferences.
thank you so much emb

thank you for your thoughts. I am using osx. the keyboard layout U.S.and hasn't been changed for months.
might there be another explanation for this problem.
thanks again emb

Even if you didn't change the keyboard layout, if you recently updated to Tiger, it will reset your keyboard layout to a Unicode one.

Possibly a corrupt font, although usually only causes problems at start up or when choosing to show fonts in actual font in preferences.

If you are only running AppleWorks 6.2, you need to update to 6.2.4 or 6.2.9. 6.2.4 is the earliest stable in OS X & 6.2.9 is the most recent. 6.2.7 is to be avoided, it was very, very buggy. You can find the 6.2.4 updater here. You can find the most reliable link to the 6.2.9 updater on this page where you can choose the appropriate updater for your AppleWorks 6 installation. Be sure to pay attention to the two English version updaters.

Whenever you do an update of AppleWorks or the system software, it's a good idea to do two maintenance tasks, one for the system (Repair Permissions) and one for AppleWorks (delete preferences). (Thanks to Barry for this way to format this very common answer.)

To Repair permissions in 10.4.x, launch Disk Utility, found in the Utilities folder in your Applications folder, click on First Aid, then on Repair Permissions.

To delete AppleWorks’ preference files, go to HD > Users > Library > Preferences. Find and delete the file com.apple.appleworks.plist. Find and open the folder AppleWorks in this Preferences folder, then delete all of the enclosed files (with the exception of the Button Bar Preferences if you have customized the Button Bars). AppleWorks will recreate the preference files as it needs them.

If you haven't updated anything recently, the likely cause is corrupt preferences. See the steps in the above paragraph.