Word won't open on mac

Copper Contributor

Hi,

For the last couple of days, the word app on my mac won't open. It bounces after clicking in the icon and then nothing happens. I have to force the app to shut down. All the other office apps are working fine. I downloaded the latest version of Mac OS. What should I do to fix this?

 

Thanks

 

60 Replies

Fix= Before opening Any Office program:

1 Turn off wifi

2. Open Office program 

3. turn wifi back on. 

It's the only thing that's worked for me. Now my chrome is doing the same thing, nd this fix works for that as well. 

Hi Rochel. My Mac is not connected to a fixed line and not the Wifi. It will be a pain to disconnect it every time I have to open an office app but will try that. Problem is that this happens intermittently. Where are the brains trust of Microsoft and Mac. There are over 2000 views of the original post

Hi Rakesh,

 

Oh my, yes I can see that would be annoying. It seems they've dropped the ball on this one.  I've had this issue for months and clearly lots of other people as well. I saw in another thread that the new update should've included a fix, but after updating, I was sadly disappointed. 

Hello

I had the same problem, what I did was the following and I was able to solve

1- Uninstall the office for mac as follows https://support.office.com/es-es/article/desinstalar-office-para-mac-eefa1199-5b58-43af-8a3d-b73dc1a...

2- Download and install the Mac OS Mojave operating system again
 
and with those two steps I was able to reopen the microsoft programs

Hi Francisco. My iMac cannot upgrade past Sierra so not compatible with Mojave :(

Hello Rakesh

if you uninstall the office with the link that I shared and reinstall Sierra to see if that works for you

Hi Rakesh and Francisco,

 

Firstly thank you so much Francisco for identifying this link!  I wanted to also supply the English version of the link as another resource: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/uninstall-office-for-mac-eefa1199-5b58-43af-8a3d-b73dc1a8ca...

 

I wanted to let you know that this solution worked for me and I didn't even have to uninstall Sierra, just Office 365. I hope this solution works for you because I literally spent 8+hours trying to fix it.

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you so much again for your help!!

 

 

 

 

Mitch - What does it mean if you can open office apps by opening a file, but you can't open them by clicking on the app icon? I get what Julie gets when clicking app icons: bouncing icons and then they die. But when clicking on files, the associated app (i.e. Word for .doc files) does open.
UPDATE: If you try to click "File -> New from Template..." in the Office apps...they crash instantly.

So it must be a template issue because the template screen is what is supposed to load when you launch an Office app from its icon.

none of that works. 

moved everything to trash twice. properly uninstalled.  re-downloaded and re-installed. 

did the disk utility thing.  the library does not have that microsoft file com.microsoft.Word.plist. 

 

why is this happening? obviously it's a common problem.  

remember the good ole days? when it all just worked? 

sigh. 

THIS IS THE METHOD TO FIX THIS MAJOR SCREW UP!  

 https://support.office.com/en-us/article/uninstall-office-for-mac-eefa1199-5b58-43af-8a3d-b73dc1a8ca...

follow the instructions.  then reinstall.  word launched perfectly.  let's see if it stays launched.

 

thank you!!!

Turning Wifi off before opening Word did solve the problem for me, and now I'll try to figure out what the real issue is.  Thank you!

turn off your wifi

open word

click Word tab

open "preferences"

open 'general'

deselect 'update automatic links at opening'

close word

turn on your wifi

open word 

 

That should have fixed it.  

I had this problem with powerpoint so I reinstalled 365, then every office app wouldn't open unless I opened a file. I spent hours on searching for the answer and found this worked:

I opened word with a file (opened a word document I had saved) 

Clicked on Word then preferences 

then general

then unclicked the check on show document gallery when opening word

It fixed the issue for me. 

I tried this with wifi off, but it may work either way. Hope that helps. 

Having the same issue! Turning off wi-fi is not helping. I can not open my word docs. 

It opens on all of my devices except my MacBook. I have everything on the cloud and waited for it to finish loading.  Everything seems to work except my Office 365 through MCC.  I tried running disk utility repair.  No problems there. I am using High Sierra.

word will not open on my mac whilst in the middle of updating a document

Any suggestions?

Just updated to mojave on MAC.  Now Word won't open.  Please help me.

Hi frames.

What version of office are you using?

You will need to check the the version you are using is compatible with Mojave.

Also can you please advise of the previous OS version you were using before upgrading to Mojave.

You will probably find the best solution will be to reinstall office. See previous posts in this thread for how to remove and install office.
Sorry F James, I blame it on auto correct