Grant File Access: Word cannot open the document: user does not have access privileges

Anonymous
2015-07-20T23:38:33+00:00

I am unable to open some Word documents due to permission issues.

I used Disk Utility to repair permissions and created a new profile and still have the following problem.  See three screenshots below:

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.

0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
John Korchok 235.9K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2017-11-30T22:29:05+00:00

You'll most likely find that you must repeat this every month, when you install an update. Every time I've tested the updating process, the fonts get reinstalled in the package.

Was this answer helpful?

8 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
John Korchok 235.9K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2018-01-04T22:31:59+00:00

It's worth a try creating a new user account on your colleague's Mac, sign in to it and test Office. If it works, you know it's some degree of corruption in the old account's installation.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has never published really complete uninstall/reinstall directions for Office 2016 for Mac. I think it likely they don't know how.

Was this answer helpful?

7 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2018-03-21T21:14:20+00:00

After working with my client for over a year, I have finally got higher ups in Microsoft Mac Development to acknowledge this bug and they are currently working on it. At least in our instance, the issue stems from activating too many fonts with a 3rd party font manager like Suitcase of FontExplorerX. The amount of fonts is usually in the 3k range, which then causes Office 2016 to act all loopy and throw up random error messages.

If you aren't using a 3rd party font manager, then your issue could be different. For those that are using a 3rd party font manager, Microsoft Developers are working on this and they expect a fix in the next couple of releases. I'll keep this thread up to date as I find out more information.

Was this answer helpful?

1 person found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2018-02-02T16:13:48+00:00

I had this problem too and it comes back sometimes after an Office update, like the most recent 16.9.1.

What I do is clearing the MS-Office font caches with Cocktail and then restart my Mac immediately. Word then opens the documents without error.

Worked for me with 10.10 Yosemite and 10.11 El Cap / Mac Pro 2008. I'm using FontExplorer X Pro 6.

Hope it helps.

Was this answer helpful?

1 person found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments

185 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
  1. Anonymous
    2017-01-15T18:43:47+00:00

    Please HELP!

    Last week I encountered the Grant Access problem on EXCEL. My issues are exactly as described in this thread regarding Word. I am running OS X Sierra and EXCEL 15.29. I have thousands of effected Excel files, while I am a heavy Excel user I an not doing anything special, no font managers, no VB,....

    I talked with Office 365 support on Friday and received no useful assistance, only suggestion was to move the files to root!! I was told that this is not a priority Microsoft problem because it does not effect many Office users. They are due to call me back on Monday with an update. I am pretty upset with Microsoft when I see how long this issue has persisted.

    Does anyone in the forum have any suggestions regarding either solving the problem or better vectors regarding getting support to solve the problem? 

    Thanks in advance.

    Bob

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments