Why Is Microsoft Word Not Responding On My Mac

Feb 11,2020 • Filed to: Recover & Repair Files • Proven solutions

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Hello all! Can anyone help me fix my Microsoft word in Windows 10? It says “Word not responding” and keeps pausing whenever I start typing on it. Please save me from this problem. I have some urgent work to submit but can’t do because of this issue. Thanks in advance!

Hello user! We can understand how frustrating this problem could be. When Microsoft Word does not respond in Windows 10, the reasons could be aplenty. Many times, these are unknown. However, we are here to talk about the solutions for the problem. Also, the issue may seem bigger when your work isn’t saved and the system shows the problem in between. Well! You don’t need to fret anymore as we are going to tell you what should be done when Word is not responding in Windows 10. Here are the potential solutions.

Part 1: Causes of Microsoft Word Not Responding Messages

Before jumping to the conclusion, it is always a sane idea to get a detailed view about the problem. And therefore, we feel that you should be well aware of the facts that trigger Word not responding issue. This way you could fix the problem accordingly. Here are some of the reasons that may cause such error.

  • First of all, it is to always remember that the problems in applications or software arise when they are not up-to-date. And hence, one reason why Word is not responding could be it is outdated.
  • Secondly and probably the office edition that you are employing is not supported by the recent operating system on your computer. These compatibility issues may give issues like “Word not responding” error.
  • Along with the software, when the system’s driver is not updated, the issue is likely to occur. Hence, you need to check on it.
  • Apart from these, word file issues or word add-in issues may also act as culprits when you face Microsoft Word not responding error.

Part 2: How Do You Fix A Word File Which Is Not Responding?

    Now that you have understood what can be the possible reasons for the problem, we can help you providing the methods that will work when your Microsoft Word fails to work. Check out the following solutions.

1. Start Word application in Safe Mode

Safe Mode can be a great way to get rid of situations like this. By using the Safe Mode for Microsoft Word, you will be able to troubleshoot such issue. Basically, this helps in disabling all the third-party services as well as applications. When the other stuff is disabled, you can simply launch Word in Safe Mode to take a proper check on it if it works or not. Here are the needed steps to be followed when Word does not respond.

Step 1: Press the Start key on your keyboard and look for Microsoft Word. Alternatively, you can press “Windows + S” key combination and type in “Microsoft Word” to point the program.

Step 2: After this, simply press the “Ctrl” key and hit on the Office Word program simultaneously. The Word will now be open in the Safe Mode.

Step 3: You can now check if the Microsoft Word is properly responding or not. If the problem still persists, you can move to the next solution.

Alternative Steps:

To run the Microsoft Office in Safe Mode, you can also make use of Command Prompt. For this,

Step 1: Press the key combination of “Windows + R” and key in “cmd”. This will open the Command Prompt.

Step 2: Now when the command prompt windows appears, you need to simply enter the path where the Word is installed. When you type it, type “winword.exe/safe” just after the path. This way you will be able to open the Word program in safe mode.

2. Run the Office Repair tool for Microsoft Word

Another way to fix Word not responding error in Windows 10 is to take help from Office repair tool. This tool can work with various Word issues like crashing and freezing etc. The steps that are involved in this process are as follows:

Step 1: Using the Start key or Windows key, type Control Panel to open it. When opened, click on “Programs” option followed by “Programs and Features”.

Step 2: Now, from the list, choose “Microsoft Office”.

Step 3: Next, select your Microsoft Office and hit on “Change” given in the top menu.

Step 4: The window that now comes will show you some options. Simply choose the “Repair” option and click “Continue”.

Note: If you have newer Microsoft Office version, make sure to choose “Online Repair” or “Quick Repair” option and then hit on “Repair”.

Step 5: The repair will now begin and your computer will be rebooted. Once done, allow the MS office to open and see if you still get “Word not responding” error.

3. Incompatible device drivers

As we mentioned in the beginning, the device drivers that are not compatible can later become problematic unless you update them. What is teh microsoft alt key on a mac computer. And therefore, in this solution, we will learn to update them to fix Word not responding issue. The steps are:

Step 1: To begin, launch Device Manager and locate your printer.

Step 2: Simply right click on printer drivers and choose “Uninstall” or “Update driver”.

Step 3: If you wish to uninstall the driver, hit on “OK” followed by restarting the computer. If your concern is to update driver, simply hit on “Search automatically for updated driver software” and go along with the prompts to complete the process. Restart the computer now.

4. Disconnect Network Drive

Another solution to be followed when Microsoft Word is not responding is to disconnect the network drive. To do this, you need to follow the steps given below.

Step 1: Click on “This PC” twice to open. On the window that comes, go to the “Map Network Drive” drop down under the “Computer” tab. Choose “Disconnect Network Drive” now.

Step 2: After this, opt for the network drive that you wish to disconnect followed by clicking the “OK” button.

Step 3: A dialog box will appear where you need to confirm your actions. Hit on “Yes” button. You are done now.

Mar 19, 2020  I have a personal Office 365 subscription and use it on my MacBook Pro 2009. It has OS X 10.11.6 and I can't Upgrade because 10.12 onwards are not compatible. Recently Word started to crash. I could open a document but it would consistently crash a after a few seconds. Jan 25, 2019  With Word, your Office moves with you. Whether you are a blogger, writer, journalist, columnist, student, or a project manager working on documentation, it’s as handy as you want it to be. Unmistakably Office, designed for Mac MacBook Pro Touch Bar is fully supported by Microsoft Word. Jan 19, 2020  From your description, it seems that you are trying to run Office 365 on Mac OS 10.11.6. Because the latest version of Office only supports the last 3 versions of Mac OS. I will recommend you may need to update your Mac OS version to the latest on your Mac and try to install again. Microsoft Word for Mac is the world’s most popular and widely used text editing application. Since its appearance in 1983, this app developed into comprehensive editing suite that provides a spectacular level of support for users of all levels, from novices and students to the businesses of all sizes, government agencies, and multi-national. Mac users interested in Free microsoft office for mac 10.6 generally download: Microsoft Excel 16.35 Excel for Mac 2011 helps you analyze, organize, and manage all your data and lists. Ms office for mac 10.11.6.

5. Disable Add-ins in Microsoft Word

The last method that could resolve your issue of Microsoft Word not responding is to remove or disable any of the add-ins in the Microsoft Word. Following are the steps for the same.

Step 1: In order to begin, press the “Windows” key along with the “R” key. It will open the run box where you need to type “winword.exe/a”. Press Enter and MS word will open sans any plugins.

Step 2: Hit on “File” now and then go to “Options”. Choose “Add-ins” from the left panel now.

Step 3: Hit on “Manage” and from the drop down menu, select “COM Add-ins”. Hit on “Go” right after that. Deselect the options that are raising the problem and hit on “OK” to confirm. Restart Microsoft word in the end.

Part 3: How to Repair Corrupt Word File Caused By Not Responding Error

In case you have lost an important word file after the “Word not Responding” error or that Word file is corrupted, fear not. We have a solution for that as well. Introducing Stellar Word Repair tool by Recoverit that helps repairing any of the corrupted MS word document without harming any of the format or original text! It comes with three repair options and works perfectly. Promising 100% satisfaction, this tool is what you need when you have to repair corrupt Word File. Let us know the steps on how this tool works when “Word not Responding” error affects your Word file.

Step by Step Guide to repair corrupt Word file with Stellar Word Repair

Step 1: To start with, all you need is to visit the official website of the tool and download it from there. Once it gets downloaded, proceed with the installation and click the necessary options. Launch the tool now.

Step 2: You will notice an “Add File” option in the “File” ribbon. Hit on it to choose the Word file that is corrupted and needs to be repaired.

Step 3: Now, select the file or folder from the respective buttons and hit on “Scan” option.

Step 4: The selected file will begin to scan. On finding, click on the “Save” option in the “File” ribbon and the file will begin to repair.

Note: You can choose “Advance Repair” given again in the “File” ribbon if your MS word file is extremely corrupted.

Video Tutorial on How to Recover an Unsaved/Deleted Word Document?


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Note

Office 365 ProPlus is being renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. For more information about this change, read this blog post.

Symptoms

If you perform one of the following procedures in one of the Microsoft Office programs that are listed at the end of this article, the program may stop responding (hang) for a long time:

  • You click the Save in list in the Save As dialog box.
  • You click the Look in list in the Open dialog box.

If you click Cancel or try to close the dialog box, the program still does not respond.

Cause

This problem may occur if any one of the following conditions is true:

  • When the computer is connected to one or more mapped network shares that are nonexistent or that are currently offline.
  • When one or more mapped drives are persistent, and the drive is in a domain that is not trusted.
  • When the mapped drive is located on a slow or a down-level computer. A down-level computer is when the operating system of the computer has an earlier version of Microsoft Windows than the computer that you are using).
  • When a mapped drive is connected across a Wide Area Network (WAN).
  • When a drive is an inaccessible removable drive.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, you must disconnect all network drives that are have any one of the conditions that are stated in the 'Cause' section. To do this, follow these steps.

Note Because there are several versions of Microsoft Windows, the following steps may be different on your computer. If they are, see the product documentation to complete these steps.

  1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Disconnect Network Drive.
  2. In the Disconnect Network Drive dialog box, click the letter of the drive that you want to disconnect, and then click OK.
  3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until all offline network drives are disconnected. If you are not sure about a particular drive, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, and then click Run.

    2. In the Open box, type the following, and then press ENTERcomputer nameshare name

      Where computer name is the name of the server that is sharing the resource, and share name is the name of the shared resource that you want to use.

      If the resource is not available, you receive an error message that is similar to the following:

      The network name cannot be found.

Alternatively, you can try to view the contents of the drive in the Windows Explorer.

Workaround

To work around this behavior, use one of the following methods.

Method 1: Do not use persistent connections

When you connect a mapped drive, click to clear the Reconnect at logon check box. By clearing this check box, the mapped drive will not be connected the next time that you log on to the computer. See the 'More Information' section for more information about how to map a network drive.

Method 2: Use a user logon script

If you can, use a logon script to connect a user to the appropriate servers every time that the user logs on. Make sure that the script maps the drive in a non persistent state. If the drive is not available as the logon script runs, the drive is not mapped. This behavior prevents the issue.

Method 3: Use server mirroring

If the connection is over a Wide Area Network (WAN), consider implementing server mirroring. Server mirroring duplicates a distant server locally. Then, map your drive to the local, duplicate server. Doing this can reduce the wait time by connecting to a local server.

Method 4: Use a shortcut to the network location

Use a shortcut on the Microsoft Windows desktop or in My Network Places to connect to the network location that you want.

More Information

Each location in a list is checked to make sure that it is available and that you have access permissions when you perform both the following procedures in Microsoft Office programs:

Word For Mac Not Responding

  • You try to open or to save a file.
  • You access the Look in or the Save In list.

Why Microsoft Word Stops Responding

If any mapped drive is in a state that is documented in the 'Cause' section, it takes some time for the condition to be detected and resolved by the Office program. To avoid this behavior, you should disconnect that mapped drive. You can look for the availability of the drive at any time in Windows Explorer. If the drive is available, map the network drive again later.

To map a drive to a resource that is online again, follow these steps:

  1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Map Network Drive.

  2. In the Drive box, click the drive letter that you want to use for the network drive.

  3. In the Folder box, type the following computer nameshare name

    Where computer name is the name of the server that is sharing the resource, and share name is the name of the shared resource that you want to use.

  4. To make the mapped drive non persistent, click to clear the Reconnect at logon check box.

  5. Click Finish.

Microsoft Word Not Responding Fix

Word

If you are trying to connect to resources on other networks, contact the network administrator. Network drives that no longer exist, that are no longer shared, or inaccessible removable drives should be permanently disconnected to avoid affecting the performance of Office products.