My Ribbon disappeared. Please read post. I really need help!

Hello all,

Had the same issue with mine. Here's what worked for me:

1. Minimize your document
2. The drop down arrow appeared in which I was able to select the "pin" icon for the ribbon.
3. Maximize your document, and the ribbon should stay.

Hope this helps!

Can you revert to an editable view by pressing the ESC key?

Which version of Word are you running? Do you see any options that refer to reading view and/or uneditable files at File > Options > General?

As Charles pointed out, a screen shot of your whole Word window may help us diagnose the issue.

See Minimizing Ribbon / AutoHiding Ribbon / Toggling Toolbars Compared - Microsoft Community.

Which version of Word are you using?

File > Account > About Word

Are you in Print Layout View?

Can you provide a screenshot of the top of your Word Window?

How to include a screenshot in your post here in the Microsoft Community

Would you mind telling us how you fixed it? It would potentially help other people who are looking for help. (It would definitely satisfy my curiosity.)

Hi, Lisa Habinowski

Thank you for your inquiry to the Microsoft Community.

It seems that your problem is the disappearance of the Ribbon in the Word application.

First, I would like to confirm the following information with you.

• What is your Word version information (select File > Account > About Word to check)? What is the current screen shot of the Word?
• When you mention that you can't start a new document, is it because you can't create a new document at all, or you can't open an existing document. If you are having problems creating or opening documents, are there any error messages popping up? If so, please provide a detailed description or screenshot of the error message.
• Are other Office applications (such as Excel and PowerPoint) working properly?

We understand that you have tried the steps in the support article and uninstalling and reinstalling, but the problem persists. Guess the problem may be caused by the interference of three-way add-ons, Word software itself. You can try the following steps in order:

1. Cancel the add-ons

Click on the document in the upper left corner of the File - Options - Add-ons - Management of the place to change to COM add-ons, and then select “Go to”, uncheck all the add-ons, click OK, restart the Word document to confirm the effect.

2. Delete Word templates

Close all documents, press Windows + R, in the open Run box, type: %AppData%\Microsoft\Templates, press the Enter key.

Backup and delete the **** .dotm **** extension of the file, such as Normal.dotm, and then re-open the word document to try!

3. Registry reset Office

Press Windows + R, in the open run box, type: regedit, press enter.

Locate the following keys, rename the Office folder (right-click it, select Rename, such as Office renamed Officeold)

 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office 

Then re-open the Word document to try the effect.

Disclaimer: Modifying the registry or workgroups is usually geared towards advanced users, administrators, and IT professionals, and it can help fix some problems, however, improper registry modifications can cause serious problems. Therefore, please make sure to follow the steps below strictly. For further protection, make a backup of the registry before modifying it. For more information on how to backup and restore the registry, please refer to: How to back up and restore the registry in Windows - Microsoft Support

If the above steps don't work, it may be a system account configuration issue, you can try the following steps:

The new local account can troubleshoot the problems that occur in the experience because the system account has changed some personalized settings, the method by switching a system login account to achieve the purpose of restoring the initial settings, you can use this to reduce the interference of certain settings on the software. At the same time, you don't have to worry about missing files, all the files installed on your computer are there. Documents that have disappeared from the desktop will be saved in your original account and you will be able to see them when you switch back again. Manage user accounts in Windows - Microsoft Support

If the problem persists after trying all of the above steps, you can reply with the information you have previously requested so that we can further assist you.

We understand the inconvenience caused by this issue and hope to assist you in resolving the problem as soon as possible, we look forward to hearing from you.

Cherry.Z|Microsoft Technical Support Specialist