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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-11-25T21:40:46+00:00

    I had the same issues with Office / Word 2016 fro Mac. Asking for permissions when trying to open a file, whether the document it was saved on the server or desktop, using Yosemite.

    After many hours of trouble shooting and going in circles, I went back to basics and found that I had no problems opening word docs when:

    1. Starting in safe mode
    2. Creating a new Admin User

    Both of these methods do not install 3rd party apps, which confirmed it was likely to be font related as font management software (Suitcase) is not installed in either of the above.

    I Deactivated all the fonts in Suitcase (except those in system folder), cleaned my font cache, and checked for corrupted fonts.

    Restarted my computer.

    I was able to open Word docs.

    I then Activated on all my fonts in Suitcase (1500+ fonts) and Word still works fine.

    To me it seems, there is a conflict with 3rd party font management and  word needs to open and load its required fonts first.

    I have added Word to load at start up in System Preferences: User : Login Items.

    Then load Suitcase and Activate fonts.

    If you Quit Word, you will need to Deactivate the fonts in Suitcase , Start Word, then Activate fonts in Suitcase.

    Good luck and if anyone from Microsoft or Suitcase/Font Management sees this .... please find a fix !!

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