Icons on Word 2019 Ribbon become disabled when working on multiple long documents

I may be using the wrong methods and doing things the wrong way but the end result is that I should not be experiencing this issue with Word's behavior. I need to know what it causing it.

If you have multiple long documents open in Word and are shifting among them to process Find and Replace, you might well experience delays, depending on your system setup. This could conceivably result in lost keystrokes and mouse clicks.

I have given you alternatives that should give you the results you want, although it would mean doing things in a different way.

I am not saying you should be experiencing this. As a fellow user, I am trying to help you deal with what you are experiencing. While you may want to know what is causing it, I'm uncertain anyone here will be able to tell you.

You might want to try doing a Save on each document after each replace step.

What are your computer's specifications?

• RAM
• Processor speed
• Hard Disk space available
• Version of Word
• Operating System

For someone here to replicate the problem would require access to the problem documents or their like on a similar system. Stefan asked if you could share a sample document. You would actually need to share the combination that is causing the problem along with a description of what you are doing with them when the problem occurs. These could be altered to remove confidential or proprietary information but would need to cause the problem on your system.

Why a sample file is important for troubleshooting. How to do it.

As a workaround, you may want to be using a batch replace utility.

• Batch Folder Process Add-In by Greg Maxey
• Document Batch Processes by Graham Mayor, MVP

Long term, I think you are using the wrong methods, perhaps more suited to Wordperfect than to Word. You are doing things the hard way.

Speaking as an Attorney you should be using Templates rather than documents for your base. You create new documents from the template and make your changes to those new documents.

For individual documents / templates you should explore Mapped Content Controls.

Repeating Data Using Document Property Content Controls and Other Mapped Content Controls

What I do is use an Excel spreadsheet to hold client/file information for multiple clients and then use Mail Merge to insert the information for a given client into a primary merge document created from a template to have a draft document. That document is then tailored to the client's special needs.

Show Line Numbers comes shipped with Word 2019 on the Layout Ribbon. The spot where I am in the document where I am trying to add line numbers is fine. If I exit Word and go back into the document then I can add line numbers in the exact spot in the document where I was trying to add them previously.

Show line numbers certainly is on the Layout tab. What you were showing, though, was on the QAT. That is a user customization.

Addressing the Line Numbering button becoming disabled...

You may be in a spot or process in a document that does not allow use of that feature.

The button you are showing is in your Quick Action Toolbar (QAT) and is not part of Word as distributed. It is a user customization that may be there as part of an Add-In. Modifying the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) in Microsoft Word

Replace has been changed to include headers/footers and textboxes. This may be part of the delays and anomalies you are seeing. I believe this is a recent change. Find and Replace in Headers and Footers and Textboxes - happens as part of find or replace in body of document

Hi sshines (sshines),

First, my pleasure to assist you.

As per your description, please don’t worry, we can work together to narrow down and resolve the situation.

Based on my test result, when I opened multiple Word document at the same tile and when I change bold style and adding some line numbers, etc, it seems work fine from my side.

Since I cannot reproduce the issue, I'd like to suggest you try the followings:

Create a new document, manually copy and paste the original content in the new document, see if the issue exists.

Or create a new document, add new content in it and apply line numbers.

If it didn’t work on your side, please check my following suggestions.

1.Make sure you’ve updated Office to the latest version that some issues can be resolved with such method.

2. Try open your Word insafe mode which allow you to safely use it when it has encountered certain problems.
3. In order to check whether it because of third party applications, you can perform a clean boot in Windows refer to this article.
4. If still can’t work, please try torepair an Office application to fix the problem.

If the issue still occurs, we’d like to collect some information to further check the scenario:

1. Could you please share with us screenshot of “Ribbon become disabled “It will help for us to check your scenario your issue.

2.Screenshot of your Office version: To check version: Open any Office Word>File>Account>Product Information (Please mask your private message for protecting your private message)

3.Does this issue happen to new created Word files as well?

I appreciate your understanding and stay safe!!

Best regards

Waqas Muhammad