Mac Cannot Open Microsoft Word After Restarting

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Cannot connect Zotero to Microsoft Word. I cannot properly connect my Zotero app to Word on my Mac. I have the Zotero tab in Word, however, whenever I try to do any of the actions, like adding a citation, a windows saying 'Word could not communicate with Zotero. Please ensure that Zotero is open and try again' pops up. Apr 21, 2017  Suddenly, can't open microsoft word on my iMac after re-starting OS X ElCapitan Version 10.11.6 Tried entering - Answered by a verified Mac Support Specialist We use cookies to give you the best possible experience on our website.

If your Mac desktop or Mac laptop is acting sluggish or programs are failing to run, you need to know how to restart your Mac computer. Restarting or rebooting your Mac essentially clears your computer’s memory and starts it up fresh. When you restart your computer, your Mac closes all running programs and offers to save any files you’re working on. After you choose to save any files, your Mac will finally boot up again.

To restart a Mac computer, you have three choices:

  • Press the power button (or press Control+Eject) and, when a dialog box appears, click the Restart button.
  • Choose the Apple key and then click Restart.
  • Press Control+Command+Eject (or Control+Command+Power button).

Cannot Open Microsoft Word 2013

Pressing the Control+Command+Eject/Power button is the most reliable way to restart a Mac because it doesn’t rely on the Mac OS X operating system.

Restarting a Mac computer isn’t the same as turning the computer on and off, which completely resets it. If you really want to make sure that your computer starts up correctly, turn it off, wait a few seconds, and then turn it on again. If you’re in a hurry, try restarting your Mac, and if that doesn’t fix the problem, you’ll have to turn it off and on again.

If your Mac freezes, restarting might not work. If your Mac is generally acting weird, restarting isn’t your only option. Macs are known not to need a lot of maintenance or troubleshooting, but if restarting (or rebooting) doesn’t work, consider some other basic troubleshooting options for your Mac.

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Note

Office 365 ProPlus is being renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. For more information about this change, read this blog post.

Symptoms

When you double-click one of these file types:

  • Word document (.doc or .docx)
  • Excel (.xls or .xlsx)
  • PowerPoint (.ppt or .pptx)

You may experience any of these problems:

  1. The file icon is blank or displays an incorrect image.

  2. The file does not open.

  3. You receive this error:

    This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Create an association in the Folder Options control panel.

  4. You receive this error:

    <file name> not a valid Win32 Application

Cause

These problems occur when the association between the file and the corresponding application is missing.

Resolution

Before you continue with any of the methods in this section, we recommend that you check for multiple Office installations on your computer. To do this, follow these steps:

Cannot Open Microsoft Word Documents

Documents
  1. Type appwiz.cpl in the Search box, and then press Enter.
  2. Check the list of currently installed programs for multiple installations of the Microsoft Office suite.

If there are multiple installations of Microsoft Office installed on the computer we recommend that you follow the steps that are listed in Method 2 of this section. If there is only one installation of Microsoft Office on the computer, follow the steps that are listed in Method 1 of this section. Only follow the steps that are listed in Method 3 if you still experience the problem after you have attempted the first two methods or you have installed Microsoft Office Trial suite.

Method 1

If there is only one installation of Microsoft Office 2010 on the computer, follow these steps to repair Microsoft Office:

  1. Type appwiz.cpl in the Search box, and then press Enter.

  2. Select the Microsoft Office 2010 suite you want to repair and then click Change.

  3. Select Repair, and then click Continue. You may have to restart your computer after the repair is completed.

Method 2

Mac Cannot Open Microsoft Word After Restarting Mac

If you have more than one installation of a Microsoft Office 2010 suite on your computer we recommend that you uninstall the Click-to-Run based suites to avoid file type association issues. You will have to uninstall the Microsoft Office Starter, Microsoft Office Click-to-Run or Microsoft Office 2010 Trial suite and repair the traditional MSI (Microsoft Installer package) based installation of Microsoft Office 2010:

  1. Type appwiz.cpl in the Search box, and then press Enter.
  2. In the Currently installed programs list, select Microsoft Office Click-to-Run 2010, and click Uninstall.
  3. You will see a prompt requesting to uninstall your selection. Click Yes.
  4. Follow the uninstall instructions, and then restart the computer.
  5. Type appwiz.cpl in the Search box, and then press Enter.
  6. Select the Office 2010 MSI-based suite that you want to repair and click Change.
  7. Select Repair, and click Continue. You may have to restart your computer after the repair is completed.

Method 3

Note

This method may not be a permanent fix to the file type association problem that you are experiencing. We recommend that you follow the previous methods first and only try these steps if you continue to experience the problem.

If you only have one of Microsoft Office Starter, Microsoft Office 2010 Trial or Microsoft Office Click-to-Run 2010 installed on the computer follow these steps to manually reassociate the file:

  1. Right-click the Microsoft Office file that you want to open.

  2. Select Open with, and then click Choose default program....

  3. In the Recommended Programs list, select Microsoft Office Client Virtualization Handler.

  4. Click to select the Always use the selected program to open this kind of file check box, and then click OK.
    If you only have a Microsoft Office 2010 MSI (Microsoft installer package) based suite installed on the computer follow these steps to manually reassociate the file:

  5. Right-click the Microsoft Office file that you want to open.

  6. Select Open with, and then click Choose default program....

  7. In the Recommended Programs list, select the appropriate program to associate with the file.

  8. Click to select the Always use the selected program to open this kind of file check box, and then click OK.
    Your file icon should now display the correct image and it should open in the correct Microsoft Office program.

More Information

The Click-to-Run and traditional MSI (Microsoft installer package) versions of Microsoft Office 2010 are not designed for use on the same computer. We recommend that you select one version to run on the computer to avoid problems such as those stated in this article.

For more information about Microsoft Office Click-to-Run and file associations, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

982434 An overview of Microsoft Office Click-to-Run for Office 2010

If you have followed the steps in this article, and you are still receiving the same error messages listed in the Symptoms section of this article, you may have permissions problems with your registry.Since it may not be possible to know what caused or led to the permissions problems, we suggest you consider restoring Windows to a previous state.

Restore system files and settings (Windows 7)https://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Restore-system-files-and-settings

How to repair the operating system and how to restore the operating system configuration to an earlier point in time in Windows Vista

How to restore Windows XP to a previous state

If your Excel files are still not opening, but the error has stopped after following these steps, you may have an additional problem to resolve.

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