Why is Word taking so long to close down AND blocking all my other documents while I wait?

Question

This morning I tried to close down one of my Word documents and it has been showing the picture below for about fifteen minutes now. I can't open any other Word documents, because that box just comes up. I can't just shut down, I have unsaved work on those other documents that I need to save. I also can't open my Excel documents. Why is it doing this and what do I do?

Answer 1

Hello,

Thank you for posting in Q&A forum.

This issue may be due to the content or operation contained in the current document causing Word to crash or become unresponsive. This may be due to the presence of complex charts, a large amount of content, or other issues in the document. Or there may be an error or crash in the Word application itself, which prevents it from continuing to function properly.

We suggest you try the following solutions:

Firstly, you can continue to wait for a while to see if there will be any progress. Sometimes, Word may take longer to process complex documents or perform certain operations.

If the waiting time is too long, you can try forcibly closing the Word application. You can find the process of the Word application in the Task Manager and select "End Task" to close it. Please note that doing so may result in the loss of unsaved changes. Please ensure that you have saved important documents.

You can try using the built-in Office tool to repair Office applications. Please refer to:

Repair an Office application - Microsoft Support

You can also try restarting your computer. Restarting can help clear temporary files or processes that may cause problems with Word.

If none of the above methods solve the problem, you may need to further check your system, such as checking for any updates available, or try reinstalling the Microsoft Office suite.

I hope these solutions can help you solve the problem! If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

Best regards，

Jill Zhou

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