Step 1: Office Repair
Microsoft has excellent instructions for how to repair Microsoft Office. They can be found at the url https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/repair-an-office-application-7821d4b6-7c1d-4205-aa0e-a6b40c5bb88b or by clicking the button below. If these instructions resolve your issue, then there is no need to proceed further.
Step 2: Office Reinstall
If repairing Office doesn’t resolve the issue, the next step is to remove and reinstall Office. While most people will use control panel to remove Office we do not recommend this approach. Our experience shows that uninstalling using the control panel is not likely to fix the problem and Microsoft’s own guidance in the link above is to use Microsoft’s “Office uninstall support tool” which is affectionately referred to as the “scrubber” or “easy fix tool”. The instructions are on the same page as the repair page under the heading “Running Repair didn’t help. Now what?”
When it is time to install Office, we recommend that you use the 32-bit version of Office. Microsoft’s guidance on choosing between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of office is located at the url https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/choose-between-the-64-bit-or-32-bit-version-of-office-2dee7807-8f95-4d0c-b5fe-6c6f49b8d261. Even though most users don’t need the 64-bit version, the default install for Microsoft Office 365 users is 64-bit. Office 365 users can use these instructions to install the 32-bit version of Office.
Go to www.office.com and login to your account. Look for the words “Install Office” near the upper right corner of the screen. Click on this button and select “Other install options” (see below).
On the next screen click “View apps & devices”.
On the next screen change the version to “32-bit” then press “Install Office”. Note that this option will not be available if you have any 64-bit version of an Office component already on your PC. For example, if you have 64-bit Visio or Project you can’t install 32-bit Office.
