Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows
A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
Take a look at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983097 for workarounds.
"error in the Microsoft Word previewer"
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Anonymous
Is there a fix for this problem?
I have Office 2010 operating on Windows 7 64 bit
When I select File >> Open and click on a Word file (new format or 2003 format) the preview pane has a message as follows
"This file can't be previewed because of an error in the Microsoft Word previewer"
Even if I create a new document and save it, trying to see it in the File Open dialog box gives the same message
Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
42 additional answers
Sort by: Most helpful
-
Anonymous
2010-08-06T21:56:53+00:00 Thanks Herb. That seems annoyingly strange. I’ll keep an eye open for the problem, but I don’t recall seeing it since I switched to Windows 7 and Office 2010.
Terry
"Herb Tyson [MVP]" wrote in message news:*** Email address is removed for privacy ***...
The issue is intermittent, Terry, which makes it hard to track down. I have three computers sitting in front of me right now, with the following combinations:
Offce 2010 64 and Windows 7 64, 8GB of RAM
Office 2010 32 and Windows 7 64, 12 GB of RAM (Also have Word 2007 running on this computer)
Office 2010 32 and Windows 7 (starter) 32, 1 GB of RAM
All three sometimes exhibit the problem, and other times not. If I play with it by switching folders and sampling different .doc/docx files, the problem eventually occurs. (Office 2010 is the retail version, so it's not a beta issue... and none of these computers ever had the beta version of Office 2010 installed.)
Herb Tyson Microsoft Word MVP Herb Tyson Word Bible Blog
Terry Farrell
-
Anonymous
2010-08-06T19:08:07+00:00 The issue is intermittent, Terry, which makes it hard to track down. I have three computers sitting in front of me right now, with the following combinations:
Offce 2010 64 and Windows 7 64, 8GB of RAM
Office 2010 32 and Windows 7 64, 12 GB of RAM (Also have Word 2007 running on this computer)
Office 2010 32 and Windows 7 (starter) 32, 1 GB of RAM
All three sometimes exhibit the problem, and other times not. If I play with it by switching folders and sampling different .doc/docx files, the problem eventually occurs. (Office 2010 is the retail version, so it's not a beta issue... and none of these computers ever had the beta version of Office 2010 installed.)
Herb Tyson Microsoft Word MVP
-
Anonymous
2010-08-06T14:51:47+00:00 Herb
I don’t have any problem previewing either docx or doc documents using Word 2010 and Windows 7 (both 32-bit). Is this known problem with just 64-bit Office or 64-bit OS or Windows XP or what?
I know it never worked in Word 2007, but Word 2010 is fine.
-- Terry Farrell - MSWord MVP
"Herb Tyson [MVP]" wrote in message news:*** Email address is removed for privacy ***...
This is due to a bug in Office 2010. Microsoft is aware of the bug and is working to resolve it... I'm told. Note that you can preview Word files in Excel 2010, and you can preview Excel files in Word 2010, but neither can preview its own files. The work-around for now is to use Windows Explorer (or a different Office 2010 program) when you need to preview files of a particular type.
Herb Tyson Microsoft Word MVP Herb Tyson Word Bible Blog
Terry Farrell
-
Anonymous
2010-08-06T12:40:55+00:00 This is due to a bug in Office 2010. Microsoft is aware of the bug and is working to resolve it... I'm told. Note that you can preview Word files in Excel 2010, and you can preview Excel files in Word 2010, but neither can preview its own files. The work-around for now is to use Windows Explorer (or a different Office 2010 program) when you need to preview files of a particular type.
Herb Tyson Microsoft Word MVP