Word for Windows after Mojave

[Dogglebird]

Hi,

I installed Mojave recently and it was working fine for a few days. Now, however, every time I try to open a Word for Windows document, it is marked as "Read Only". It invites me to make a duplicate and then it immediately makes the duplicate do the same. That means I can't edit or save Word docs. Anyone have any ideas what's causing it?

Thanks

 

[FNH15]

What version of Office are you running?

 

[Dogglebird]

It's the 2016 version.

 

[campyguy]

A couple of file flags from the file creator could be at issue. One is a bug in VBA in the Windows code going back to Word 2003, it hasn't been fixed yet, there's only a workaround that MS offered but it has to be done on the Windows side in the macro(s) that may be embedded in the document(s).

The second is the creator of the files set one of the flags to protect the document. There's plenty of copies of MS's instructions to address this - again, on the Windows side, addressed by the file creator.

Also, check the File Menu when the "copy" of the file is open - there's a toggled/checked command relevant to open that specific file as Read Only. There's about 8 different means to protect a file or make it read only in Win Word, pretty much all of the have to be addressed in the Win application...

 

[chrfr]

It's the 2016 version.

There are many versions of Office 2016. Have you checked for updates?

 

[Panthera Tigris Altaica]

Hi,

I installed Mojave recently and it was working fine for a few days. Now, however, every time I try to open a Word for Windows document, it is marked as "Read Only". It invites me to make a duplicate and then it immediately makes the duplicate do the same. That means I can't edit or save Word docs. Anyone have any ideas what's causing it?

Thanks

That's usually a problem on the Windows end. Around here, at least, that happens sometimes when at least two of the following is true:

1 the file is on a network share, and is open for editing by another user

2 the file is on a network share, and was closed abnormally so the network _thinks_ that it's open for editing elsewhere

3 the file was copied from a network share, usually a network share where the local hard drive is formatted NTFS, to a device formatted FAT32 or exFAT

4 the last user to access the file over a network share was using LibreOffice, particularly LibreOffice v5.x.

5 the file was created using LibreOffice and was originally saved as a LibreOffice native document (ODT) and then was SaveAsed to MS Word DOCX format.

6 the file was last worked on by a user running Word 2007 or 2010 on a Win 7 system and was originally a DOC format document, not a DOCX. (Seriously. Microsoft breaks their own file formats. I had great fun with PowerPoint 2011 on Mac and PPTX files from PowerPoint 2010 on Windows and 2008 on Mac. Not every document, not even most documents, but enough documents to annoy.)

7 Someone edited a DOC with WordPad. This is a Bad Idea™.

 

[yukari]

The file may be locked.
I use a locked file as a template so I don’t accidentally change the content. It gives the same message.

 

[Dogglebird]

chrfr - I checked and everything is uptown date with updates.

Panthera Tigris - thanks. Any idea how to fix it? I have even reinstalled iOS using Time Machine, but opening certain Word documents seems to cause the problem.

yukari - Any ideas how to prevent this?

 

[yukari]

At finder, select the document, click on "Get Info" and uncheck "Locked".

 

[Panthera Tigris Altaica]

chrfr - I checked and everything is uptown date with updates.

Panthera Tigris - thanks. Any idea how to fix it? I have even reinstalled iOS using Time Machine, but opening certain Word documents seems to cause the problem.

yukari - Any ideas how to prevent this?

Make sure that you're. not attempting to access files locked for use by others, or just locked. Doing a 'get info' will usually show if the file is locked.