When switching between applications on different displays, Microsoft Word (or Excel) "steals focus" and becomes the active window.

There is a work around that seems to help.

1. Alt-click the Word icon in the dock to bring up the menu and select Options.

2. Select Assign to a specific desktop space. Not All, and not None. Just select a Desktop on a particular Display.

This prevents Word from using any other space, and it seems that when it occupies multiple spaces it really becomes a problem. I can deal with crippling Word much better than crippling everything else...

That didn't work for me. Word seems to ignore the settings and open up on a different desktop; and even if I move it to the assigned desktop, the problem persists.

The only workaround I've found is to always hide (cmd-h) Word unless I'm actively editing a document. That's a huge pain, because I'm often working on a Word document and a document in some other application (e.g. a gdoc) in parallel...

Yeah, it's only of limited help. The best strategy I've found is to make Pages the default app for all .doc and .docx files, do the same with Numbers and Keynote for .xls, .xlsx and .ppt/pptx. Then only use Microsoft program if you really have to - such as when there are equations created in Microsoft Word, which are not supported by my (Mavericks) version of Pages. Then at least use of documents in MS Word is highly limited, and fewer problems emerge.

This not a Microsoft office problem, this is a Mavericks problem. Since upgrading to 10.9.5, I ma having all kinds of issues related to active window. Yes I have seen this frequently with MS Office products, but also with browsers (Yes Firefox). Apple screwed up something with this update and it is a major annoyance to say the least. Really hope they fix this issue because it significantly hurts the usability of the OS now. 😟

Did you notice that your problems come from products that are not made by Apple (Microsoft, Mozilla etc)

Uninstall the 3rd party stuff and test again.

I disagree. Don't open Word/Excel/Powerpoint in any window or screen. Everything is fine for me and I use literally dozens of other applications often at the same time. I've not tried Firefox, but other 3rd party software like chrome is fine. If you must use Word, then just open the one window and close it as soon as you're finished. A Microsoft problem, clear as day, in my experience.

I don't think it is necessary a 3rd party problem. I'm not having Word "steal" focus when I switch apps, It's more that when I launch something like apple mail, it has been opening behind active windows such as Word. This especially true with Mail and new mail messages. This happened as soon as 10.9.5 was installed. There were no other Office updates. I have noticed on many occasions where I launch a window and it opens behind the existing active window.

Uninstalling 3rd party applications is not a solution.

I agree that this is not a Microsoft problem. This happens to me constantly with pretty much any app, including native apps like Safari and other third-party apps. It's such a massive and blatantly obvious bug that I am very surprised that Apple hasn't addressed it.

Try turning off "when switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application" in Mission Control preferences. You may need to toggle it twice (off > on > off) to get it to take effect. This seems to mitigate, but not completely correct, the behavior on my system.

Hi, I have been hit by this bug, but only for the last couple of weeks. I am on Mavericks since it came out, and use Word every day (unfortunately). This is very annoying. Does not happen with Excel, I don't know about PowerPoint as I don't use it. No other app does this for me, just Word. And only with 2 displays. I let Office update whenever it suggests it, but I don't remember if an update took place 2 weeks ago. I have no idea why Word has been doing this only recently.

Yes, great, solved my problem