The problem could be due to Office having corrupt preferences that are exploited when using a program that takes advantage of Visual Basic, which is what EndNote uses to communicate with Word.

Using Word 2004 and EndNote 8 or later:

Here's a list of common steps to recreate the damaged Word prefs files, which sometimes cause crashes and problems with Word/EndNote:

1. Close out of Word and create a "Backup" folder on your desktop.



2. Open your Hard Drive in Finder.



3. Go to "Home > Documents > Microsoft User Data".



4. There is a "Normal" file in this folder, go ahead and drag it to the "Backup" folder.



5. In Finder, go to "Home > Library > Preferences", and drag the "com.microsoft.word.plist" file to the "Backup" folder.



6. Go to "Home > Library > Preferences > Microsoft" and drag the "com.microsoft.word.prefs.plist" and the "Office Registration Cache 11" to the "Backup" folder.



7. Reboot the Mac, and try using the tools in Word once again and see if the problem has been resolved.

Using Word X and EndNote 6 or later:

Here's a list of common steps to recreate the damaged Word prefs files, which sometimes cause crashes and problems with Word/EndNote:

1. Close out of Word and create a "Backup" folder on your desktop.



2. Open your Hard Drive in Finder.



3. Go to the Applications folder, then to the Office X folder, then to the Templates folder.



4. There is a "Normal" file in this folder, go ahead and drag it to the "Backup" folder.



5. In Finder, go to "Home > Library > Preferences > Microsoft", and drag the "Carbon Registration Database", the "Office Registration Cache X", and the "Word Settings (10)" files to the "Backup" folder.



6. If you are using EndNote 6 or 7, go to "Home > Library > Preferences > EndNote f" and drag the "EndNote CWYW Prefs" file to the "Backup" folder.



7. Reboot the Mac, and try using the tools in Word once again and see if the problem has been resolved.

If that doesn't resolve the problem, in Word, go to "Tools > Macro > Visual Basic Editor". If the Visual Basic Editor starts and shows a Projects window, go to Word in the menu and select "Close and return to Word". If the Visual Basic Editor does not open and shows an error such as "cannot load macro storage," proceed with the following steps:

1. Go to the Office X folder, then to the Office folder and locate these four files:
   MS Component Library (Carbon)
   MS OLE Automation (Carbon)
   MS OLE Library (Carbon)
   MS Structured Storage (Carbon)



2. Temporarily move these four files out to the desktop, and start Word. You'll get a message that there isn't enough disk space, and Word will quit. After getting this message, move the four files back to where they were, start Word again, and you should now be able to start the Visual Basic Editor.

If the above does not fix the Visual Basic Editor, reinstall MS Word and run any Word updates/patches. EndNote will not be able to communicate properly with Word if the Visual Basic Editor is not functioning.

If the above did not resolve your problem

The problem may be an issue with your disk permissions. Go to "Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities". Open up Disk Utility. Select your hard disk, then click the First Aid tab. Click the button to "Repair Disk Permissions".

Additional problems may be caused by some user-specific setting or preference for your account. To verify this, try creating a new Admin user account on the computer, log in as this user, and see if you still have the same problem with Word.