Word 2002 crashes when you print a document in the background (821526)

SYMPTOMS

When you print a document in the background of Microsoft Word 2002, Word 2002 may crash. You receive an error message that is similar to the following:

Microsoft Word has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

If you click the click here link in the dialog box, you receive the following error signature:

Error signature:
AppName: winword.exe
AppVer: 10.0.4219.0
ModName: winword.exe
ModVer: 10.0.4219.0
Offset: 00020ec2

CAUSE

This problem occurs if you perform the following actions before background printing the document:

Edit the header or footer.
Insert a comment.
Run a macro that retrieves information about the document.

The presence of the following items increases the risk that this problem will occur:

Text boxes in the document.
Text boxes in the header and footer.
More than one section in the document.
Fields in the header or footer that retrieve information about the document (for example, a NUMPAGES field).

RESOLUTION

Service Pack Information

This problem is corrected in Office XP Service Pack 3. To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Office XP. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

307841 How to obtain the latest Office XP service pack

How to obtain the hotfix

This issue is fixed in the Word 2002 Hotfix Package June 20, 2003. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

822865 Description of the Word 2002 post-Service Pack 2 hotfix package: June 20, 2003

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.
This problem was first corrected in Office XP Service Pack 3.