Word not displaying table data with merged cells after updates

Question

Windows 10, Office 2016 Pro Plus both fully patched.  Have a word document that includes multiple tables, in each table there are merged cells.  If the cell is merged you can't click on the cell or see the data in the cell.  If you copy the table out of word and paste it into excel the data shows.  If you un-merge the cells and paste it back into word it shows all of the data.  I tried this on a system that is not patched and the merged tables display properly in word.  Why would an Office update break pasting merged cells into a word document?  Any advise on this will be greatly appreciated, this is impacting over 4600 documents at this time and I am sure we will be finding many more.  Here is a screen shot of a sample table and what word is doing with it.  You can't click in the blank cells once it is in word.  Thanks all

Answer 1

I did the patches that were released and it fixed the problem.  Make sure that you have the patches that are identified above uninstalled, after you run your updates.  If you can't uninstall or run the updates just show your IT folks this page and it will help them fix it.

Answer 2

This is most probably the same issue as described in https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_word-mso_win10-mso_2016/issue-merging-word-tables-after-applying-kb3213656/aeae7b7f-3db8-467d-80db-da8d02a8140e .

This time the patch introducing the issue can be uninstalled without security concerns.

But I'm seriously concerned that the next patch containing also security updates for Word 2016 WILL reintroduce the issue if Microsoft does not investigate and fix it in time.

So please keep us updated!

The problem should also be described as a known issue in https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3213656/august-8-2017-update-for-word-2016-kb3213656.

Probably the patch should even be revoked as text in the vertically merged cells becomes invisible and uneditable!

Answer 3

Beside kb3213656 also kb4011039 is causing the table bug. See also the addendum to my blog post Update KB4011039 causes again Word/Outlook 2016 table bug 

FYI: I've asked MS folks to escalate this issue to Microsoft's Office product group. The issue has been confirmed and I was told from a MS employee, that a fix is targeted for October (see my addendum to the article linked above).

Answer 4

Your suspicions about the next release were correct.

They released another KB on 9/5/2017, KB4011039 which also causes text in vertically merged cells to disappear and prevents you from editing the content or text within that cell.

Uninstalling this KB seems to fix the issue.

Answer 5

We have the same issue with merged cells. We have Windows 10 Pro and Office 2016 standard. Updates are installed through windows update automatically, but i can not find this KB3213656 in "View installed updates" window so i can not uninstall it.  But when i try to install it manually i get "this update is already installed" message.

So for now the only thing that worked for me was to uninstall Office completely, reinstall it and block updates... When windows update searches and finds office updates, there is no KB3213656.

Same thing here: no sign of KB3213656 in"Installed Updates" or on WSUS. Luckily the first recent update I uninstalled - KB4011039 - seemed to be the one causing the problems. (A quick search will confirm that others have observed the same behaviour). Off to remove it from WSUS...

Removing KB4011039 has got rid of the problem for me - thanks for finding and posting the (hopefully temporary) solution.