MS Word in Dock of my iMac opening new files in US letter format.

Question

MS Word in Dock of my iMac opening new files in US letter format.

This could be a Microsoft problem but also Mac one too.

Recently I have been trying to sort out some printing problems with an Imac running High Sierra - a project in progress.

What I have discovered by accident is weird Dock performance. (Probably going on for years as I don’t use this Imac)

If I open MS Word in Applications it opens with a blank A4 document.

If I make an alias and put on the desktop when opening it again creates a blank A4 document

The Word application is in Dock.

When I select Word from the dock icon it opens with a blank document in US Letter, I want A4.

I have delete the dock icon and dragged Word application to dock to recreate it.

I have spent hours trying to find out why and hence a solution. Tried amongst other things deleting dock plist type files, trying to create/modify templates. Deleted templates eg Normal.dotm in many places. Booted in Safe Boot……...

I have reinstalled the last Security Update as that sometimes works.

I have searched the net extensively.

Has anyone come across such behaviour or suggest what I need to do which I might not have already tried. (Reinstalling MSOffice or MacOs are not options).

[Re-Titled By Moderator]

iMac 27″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Apr 15, 2024 2:07 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 15, 2024 10:44 AM in response to Need_help_give_help

That is really weird.

The first thing I thought was maybe you had a different version somehow, but as you say you dragged Word from the Applications folder to the Dock, I can't fathom how launching the application in one way vs the other would have a different outcome.

If you launch Word using Spotlight: command-space, start typing Word, press enter; which of the two behaviors do you get? Same as from the Dock, or from Applications?

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Answer 2

Apr 15, 2024 7:41 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Hi Luis

We agree its weird.

Opened via Spotlight and get US Letter - same as the dock.

Incidentally have tried with different users even creating a new one but get the same result.

ps I rather liked my orginal title but agree the amended one is more descriptive

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Answer 3

Apr 17, 2024 6:33 AM in response to Need_help_give_help

Another point.

When I open WORD from Applications it gives me a blank document entitled “Document1”. (A4)

When I open from Dock the blank document is “Template1” (US Letter)

I will post if I find a solution and even ‘why’, otherwise I am open to further suggestions.

Thanks.

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Answer 4

Apr 17, 2024 5:01 PM in response to BDAqua

Thanks BDAqua for both your replies

Yep done many times also opened Word from Applications then selected 'keep in dock'. Have been through process which included 'killall dock' sending dock back to default settings.

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Answer 5

Apr 18, 2024 2:40 AM in response to BDAqua

Thanks again BDAqua and shall regretably decline your suggestion for the time being as I don't like downloading such software - perhaps through ignornace. I realise I shall suffer the consequence of not doing so

I have though deleted manually HD/Library/Caches and user/library/caches in the hope that will go somewhere near what onyx might do. No change after rebooting of course.

I have previously run in Safe Boot which I thought cleared out 'nasties'

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