Word & PDF files not opening under Catalina
word and PDF files that I created in 2018 do now not open under Catalina. Neither PDFs nor word doc or docx.
word and PDF files that I created in 2018 do now not open under Catalina. Neither PDFs nor word doc or docx.
If you have any non-subscription version of MS Office earlier than 2019 you'll need to upgrade to Office 365 or the Office Home and Student 2019 versus.
As an alternative to Word try opening the Word file with the free, open-source LibreOffice app.
If you have a Catalina compatible MS Office try the following:
1 - Log into another admin user account, Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac, and see if the problem persists. (This tells us if the problem is limited to your user account or is system wide).
2 - boot into Safe Mode (How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support) by booting with the Shift key held down and check there to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.
NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing some system cache cleaning, volume verifying and directory repairing.
If you have any non-subscription version of MS Office earlier than 2019 you'll need to upgrade to Office 365 or the Office Home and Student 2019 versus.
As an alternative to Word try opening the Word file with the free, open-source LibreOffice app.
If you have a Catalina compatible MS Office try the following:
1 - Log into another admin user account, Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac, and see if the problem persists. (This tells us if the problem is limited to your user account or is system wide).
2 - boot into Safe Mode (How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support) by booting with the Shift key held down and check there to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.
NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing some system cache cleaning, volume verifying and directory repairing.
Download and run Etrecheck. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.
Copy the report
and use the Add Text button to include the report in your reply. How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report
IMPORTANT:
Before running Etrecheck assign Full Disk Access to Etrecheck in the Etrecheck's Privacy preference pane so that it can get additional information from the Console and log files for the report:
Also click and read the About info to further permit full disk access.
Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine what might be causing the problem.
Office for Mac 2011 is not supported by Catalina.
You can use this link to try finding an App that will open your docs.
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/open-microsoft-office-documents-mchlp2737/mac
Hi Old Toad,
thanks a million for your super speedy response. And yes, indeed, under a different user on the same machine I can open the very files.
Do you happen to know, how to fix it then under another user account?
Best
Björn
What version Office are you using to open Word documents?
Word & PDF files not opening under Catalina