MS Word 2016 Alt-Click on a word to open Research Bug

I read through this thread again and one thing I didn't suggest was to rename the entire Word key in the Registry. Here it is again for reference:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word\

Another thing I thought of is I manually turned on the display of the Research pane before I changed the language. Are you able to view the Research pane using Ctrl+Shift+O or from your Quick Access Toolbar?

This certainly looks like a bug.

Note, however, that you can make use of the built-in shortcut Ctrl+Shift+O to look up the word at the insertion point in the Research pane.

In addition, you can assign a shortcut to the Research command (via the Customize Keyboard dialog box) if you want a quick way to display the Research task pane without looking up the word at the insertion point.

It's a very odd bug. I wouldn't think modifying a language would make a difference, but that's what worked on my end. As I mentioned before, I tried everything I could think of previously. I even tried using the left and right Alt buttons. It was only when modifying the language settings that it started working. You made sure you exited all other Office apps before you made the change? It could be worth trying again, by removing UK English, and making sure all the apps are closed and verify it in the Task Manager. If one app is running, it could prevent the changes from taking place.

If that doesn't work, then a reboot is definitely worth trying. It's always worth trying. I've lost count of the number of times a simple reboot fixed an issue.

I edited step 12 and clarified it. You interpreted it correctly. It's odd that none of those worked. I can't think of anything else that gets updated when a language is added or removed.

As a last resort, you might try that. Exit all of the Office apps except Word. In Word, go to File/Options/Language and add another language, such as English UK. When prompted, exit Word for the change to take effect.

You’re right. It does work in Outlook. I didn’t try that before. Since it works there, then that rules out other app interference. I tried several things and thought it may be due to having more than one language installed and removed all but one. That worked, but it it’s not the underlying problem, I added them back and it still works. That leads me to think the issue is in the Registry or the Normal template since those are updated when languages are added and removed. Unfortunately, I’m unable to pinpoint the specific issue since mine is working again so it will be a process of elimination.

Try the following:

1. Exit Word and press the Windows Key + E to open an exploring window.
2. In the Address bar, type: %AppData% and press Enter.
3. From there, open the Microsoft\Templates folder and locate Normal.dotm
4. Right-click Normal.dotm, click Rename, and then name it OldNormal.dotm
5. Start Word and see if the issue is resolved.
6. If it isn’t, then exit Word and do the following:
7. Press Windows Key + R to open the Run command
8. In the Run Command dialog, type Regedit and press Enter
9. In the Registry, navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word\Data
10. Rename the Data key to OldData
11. Start Word and see if the issue is resolved.
12. If it isn’t, then in the Word key in the Registry, locate the Settingsand rename it to OldSettings.
13. Start Word.

Note that if renaming the Data or Settings keys didn't work, you can exit Word and delete the newly created keys in the Registry and rename the old ones back to restore your previous settings. You can do the same for your Normal.dotm as well.

If any of these suggestions resolved the issue, please let us know which one worked for you so we’ll have it for future reference.