Forum Discussion
Help for Excel shown in place of help for Word
When I press Help or F1 in a Word document, I get a list of topics for Excel, and, when I do a basic search, I'm always told that the topic isn't there, e.g. 'Sorry, there are no results for "font"'....
It may be related to:
- Corrupted Help Files or Registry Settings
Sometimes Office Help files get tangled up, especially if multiple Office apps are installed or updated inconsistently.
- Try a Quick Repair:
- Go to Control Panel > Programs > Microsoft Office > Change > Repair
- Choose Quick Repair first. If that doesn’t work, try Online Repair.
- Office Installation Glitch
If Word and Excel are sharing resources incorrectly, a reinstall might reset the Help associations.
- Uninstall and reinstall Office, or use the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant to fix Office issues.
- Help Pane Configuration
- Open the Help pane manually (click the “?” icon or press F1), then look for a dropdown or filter option to switch to Word-specific content.
- If you see an Online/Offline toggle, try switching to “Show content only from this computer” to reset the context.
- Add-ins or Custom Macros
Occasionally, third-party add-ins or VBA scripts can hijack Help behavior.
- Try launching Word in Safe Mode:
- Press Win + R, type winword /safe, and hit Enter.
- Then press F1 and see if Help behaves correctly.
Sorry not to have replied earlier. The problem seems to have gone away of its own accord, but thank you for your help.