Why I can't right click a Microsoft office app and select recent.

I have Word 16.78 and right-clicking on its icon in the Dock has a list of grayed out Open Recent entries that remain so until I cancel the open Gallery panel. The fix is to disable this Word preference : General : Show Document Gallery when opening Word.

The downside of this is that Word will open to a new blank document rather than displaying the gallery of templates and recent documents in an initial panel. One has to decide if the trade-off is worth seeing open Recent documents in the Dock or on screen when Word launches.

howardfromlafayette wrote:

I used to be able to right-click a Microsoft office app in my dock and select a recent document, back when I had a subscription. But I stopped the subscription and went to LibreOffice. Later on I got a cheaper version of Office.

If I right click LibreOffice (or other editing apps), it sees a list of recent documents. But not Word or Excel. I can open Word and then select a recent document, but right-clicking it and "Show Recents" shows "No Available Windows".

What's happening here? How do I fix it?

If it does not present try something different...

ref: Open recently used items on Mac

Maybe that is what you get with your "cheaper version of Office." (?)

if in doubt search the developers website or contact their: Support/Help/FAQ/Known issues/compatibility/Updates

Microsoft Corporation/Customer service

1 (800) 642-7676

Microsoft support

https://support.microsoft.com

Ask the Microsoft Community

https://answers.microsoft.com/

I have an Office 365 subscription, and it's the same for me with Word and Excel. With Pages and Numbers, if I right-click in the dock and select "Open Recents", it will still put up the "No Available Windows" message, but recent documents will be arrayed near the bottom of the desktop. But most other apps will also do what Word does: FireFox, Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Photos among them (mostly Apple apps). That is, I click on "Show Recents" but they won't show recent items, neither in the right-click "box" nor on the desktop.

Before I posted, I was seeing grayed out Open Recent items from the Word Dock location. Now, I see Open Recent items in that location (not grayed out), Open Recent items in the File menu, and again, in the launched Template/Recents dialog with that Word Preferences : General item (red box) selected.

I wish this application were more consistent between launches.

I have 16.75 from Office 2019 and Open Recents works from the Dock.

No issues with or without the Gallery open.

There seems to be a lot of problems with the current release versions of Office.