Microsoft Word - Unresponsive

Question

When I open my Microsoft word 365 on my surface laptop, it becomes unresponsive when I click print, or when I change the margins from 1" to a custom one that I had. Word 365 becomes unresponsive and white screens - not showing anything on Word, just a white screen with only the heading at the top. When this happens, I am unable to retrieve my document, and it does not save my last entry on the document. I also have to shutdown my computer to re-open word. I am also unable to add a Header and Footer because it becomes nonresponsive and white screens also. PLEASE HELP - this started happening when I had to update Windows 365.

Answer 1

Hi Lee, follow these steps to perform a full repair of your Office installation . . .

Open Control Panel - Programs and Features

Click Microsoft Office in the list of installed applications

At the top, click 'Change'

On the resulting dialog, click 'Repair' - choose the online repair, it is a comprehensive fix

That should fix any issues with your Office Installation . . .

Answer 2

Please try these options one by one and check after each option.

1. Open Word > File > Options > Advanced > Under Display, check Disable Hardware graphics acceleration
2. Try repairing your office installation (Quick repair is good enough). Try repairing your Office installation. First try Quick Repair (takes 5 - 10 mins) , if that doesn't help then try Online Repair (Takes more than 30 mins but less than 1 hour in general)

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Repair...

3. Sometimes, add-ins can cause problems. To determine, if add-in is a problem start your application in safe mode and see if problem has gone away.

To start in Safe Mode -

Hold CTRL key and click on application icon and don't release the CTRL key till it asks you for Safe mode confirmation.

If yes, then start application normally and disable add-ins one by one and start application again every time you disable an add-in to determine the culprit add-in.

To disable add-in > File > Options > Add-ins > Down below you have Manage: Com Add-in : Press Go > Untick the Add-ins to disable and tick to enable them

4. Many third party applications also cause the problem like Tuneup Utilities, Abby Finereader, Kaspersky & other Anti Viruses etc. If you want to know if some program is conflicting -

Boot your computer in Clean boot mode and then start the application. If it works successfully, then some program is conflicting with this.

Refer to the section - How to determine what is causing the problem after you do a clean boot.

Don't forget to do - Reset the computer to start normally after clean boot troubleshooting.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929135...

5. Sometimes, this is caused due to application not being able to access the default printer. Close all office applications and change your default printer through Start > Devices and Printers to another printer. It may be some physical one or One Note or XPS or PDF or anything else. If this is the problem, then you will need to update your printer driver for default printer.

Do let me know if you have any more question or require further help. If above didn't work, I will supply more troubleshooting steps to solve this problem.