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Issue merging Word tables after applying KB3213656

Anonymous
2017-08-17T07:14:59+00:00

Hi All,

We have applied KB3213656 to our Office 2016 environment in order to fix the Outlook spell check issue mentioned in the KB article. We have since noticed that this has broken tables in both Word and Outlook. Basically if you merge two or more cells, as long as at least two of the cells are in different rows, the resultant cell becomes completely unusable.  You cannot click into it, type into it or right click it. That is unless the merge includes the top row.

But that's not all!

If you open an existing document that has cells that have been merged previously. Any of those cells will appear completely blank. Doesn't matter which view you use in Word.

I have checked styles/indenting and all that but it's like the cells are completely empty...uninstalling the hotfix fixes the issue immediately, which is what we're doing for now (tables are more important than and extra few clicks in a spell check)

My question is: has any one else noticed this? I cant seem to find anyone else with the same issue online. Also is there some workaround or obvious fix that i'm missing?

We're using Office 2016 (not click to run) x86 on Windows 10 x64

Thanks in advance!

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-10-06T01:41:33+00:00

    Pretty sure that that is the process for updating the Click to run Office 365. As far as I know, this issue doesn't affect that version.

    Do you know if there's a downloadable hotfix for the issue? Or can it be pulled by WSUS?

    Here you go: https://support.microsoft.com/en-sg/help/4011140/october-3-2017-update-for-word-2016-kb4011140

    This update fixes the following issues:

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-09-09T02:25:18+00:00

    Done! Working on getting all the docs updated now. I'm told the Patch with the fix is targeted for October.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-08-20T10:03:22+00:00

    Thank you for clarifying that out Jase. Your Office programs may have been corrupted during the update process. What we can do here is to open your Office apps in safe mode. This will help us identify if an add-in is what's causing the error. You may refer to this support article for the steps: Open Office apps in safe mode on a Windows PC.

    Do get back to us should you need further assistance.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-08-17T23:14:04+00:00

    Hi Anne,

    We've tried repairing already. As mentioned we've pinpointed the issue down to that specific patch. This issue is replicated across multiple machines in our organisation (All office 2016 machines)

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-08-17T15:02:54+00:00

    Hi Jase,

    Errors like this in your Office programs can be caused by several reasons. One could be that the patch you recently made caused other programs to behave like this. To help you better with this issue, we suggest that you repair your Office application. You may refer to this support article for the steps: Repair an Office application.

    Update us with the result so we can assist you further.

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