Word document blank when saved as PDF

Question

I've found inquiries about PDF documents being blank when trying to save Word docs as PDF, but my problem is the opposite:  When I save a Word document as a PDF and try to come back to the Word document, it's a blank page.  The PDF it creates is fine; just the Word document becomes a blank page.  I have to close out of Word completely (and sometimes out of all Office programs, including Outlook) and reopen the file.  Anyone have any idea what's going on or how I can fix it?

Answer 1

Hi cweiss622,

According to your description, you saved document as a PDF and PDF saved properly.

But Word document will be turned to blank and you need to re-open Word document to see content.

I also tested on my side via two ways, one is File>Export>Create a PDF/XPS, another is File>Save As>PDF. When I finished, the word document was not blank.

Here are some suggestions for you, and I hope they can help you:

1. Please make sure your Office client is the latest version.
2. Run Office safe mode to rule out add-in impacts.
3. Make sure there’s no 3rd party apps & services running on the backed, only Office apps, to avoid any possible confliction. You can perform a clean boot in Windows to determine whether a background program is interfering with Office program.
4. If issue remains, try to fix Office client, by performing an online repair.

If the problem persists, could you please provide some information for me?

1. The screenshot of Office account, go File>Account>Product Information.
2. What happens when you try on new document?
3. Does it happen on specific one or all documents?
4. When this problem happens to start?

Regards,

Jazlyn

Answer 2

Thanks for replying.  Sure enough, when I opened Word in Safe Mode and saved to PDF, the Word doc was fine.  So, now, how do I go about determining what add-in may be the problem?

Answer 3

Also, it doesn't seem to happen with all docs.  Ugh.  I realize it's definitely happening with one doc in particular that I use all the time.  It's basically a Word doc that I set up as a form I use for (my version of) bid approval purposes.  I fill it in accordingly each time, then save it as a PDF before sending it off, but I've had it happen where I noticed an error after converting and wanted to go back to the Word doc to make changes.  The other day, I couldn't even close and re-open to do it.  I had to close out of ALL MS Office, including Outlook before I could re-open and actually view the Word doc.  Would definitely love to figure out if an add-in is the issue and how to resolve.  Thanks in advance for your help with this!

Answer 4

Hi cweiss622,

Thank you for the detailed reply.

According to the reply, we can know that the problem disappears after trying Word safe mode. So the main cause of the problem is the add-ins in the Word application.

Because the add-ins included in the different Office client are different, so we cannot accurately find out which add-in caused the problem here.

We suggest that you can disable all the add-ins in Word application which is equivalent Word safe mode, then enable each add-in individually to find out the cause.

Here are the steps:

 1. Click File > Options > Add-Ins.

 2. Select an add-in type.

 3. Click Go.

 4. Uncheck all the add-ins.

 5. Then repeat step 1-3 to check each add-in individually.

Appreciate your understanding and patience.

Best regards,

Jazlyn