Unable to type in Word X

Working on a friend's Mac here and we are unable to type anything in MS Word.
You can open existing documents or just a blank page, but cannot type anything at all. It's as if the keyboard were not working at all, except that it works normally in every other application.

I have reinstalled office twice. The second time, I followed the directions found here: How to remove Office v. X for Mac and Office 2004 for Mac Standard Edition from your computer and manually deleted all of the files. Still no luck. I've searched around for a couple of hours but haven't been able to find any info on this particular problem.

Any ideas?

Should work in Tiger but if you are using Leopard or Snow Leopard i would consider a later app such as iWork 09 or even Office 2008. Keep in mind, iWork can be saved in a number of formats including word and excel.

It is Tiger 10.4.11. I'm personally not a fan of Office but buying a copy of iWork isn't exactly an option right now. I was hoping for a solution for Office, for the time being.

It would seem there must be some other files left behind but I don't know where they could be. In addition to the files listed on the above mentioned site, I also checked Application Support but found nothing.

Next option if you need to get work done right away is OpenOffice.

It's a slight possibility that your font color may be white. Happened to me once. Somewhat confusing until I discovered the font color had changed. Does the cursor move as you try to type? If so, type a line and then try to highlight it. If not, it's something else.

Did you use the Microsoft Remove Office prior to reinstalling? If not, give it a try. Then reinstall - yet again!

Repair Permissions using Onyx Titanium Software to see if that fixes whatever is blocking text insertion in Word.

You say "works normally in every other application". Does that include TextEdit? My thinking here is that TE can be saved in Word format. A workaround rather than a fix.

It's not the font color, but rather the cursor doesn't even move. I can click to insert the cursor anywhere within a document, but key presses do absolutely nothing. No spaces, arrow keys, nothing.

I wasn't able to try the removal tool because I couldn't find it on the CD. This copy of Office is legitimate, but is a burned backup disc and I don't think whoever made it copied the "Value Pack" folder from the original disc. From what I can tell, the removal tool isn't available anywhere as a separate download.

I have not tried repairing permissions yet, so I'll try that next.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

If you do not have the install CD, how do you activate it with Microsoft? The codes are usually on the reverse of the CD pack. Also download the latest update 10.1.6 and see if that makes any difference. Here is a link:-

Download details: Microsoft Office v. X for Mac Security Update (10.1.6)

I do have the product key, just not the original disc.
I'll try the update tomorrow.

tyson0016 said:

I wasn't able to try the removal tool because I couldn't find it on the CD.

Click to expand...

Check again inside the MSOffice folder for another folder called Additional Tools, and then yet another folder called Remove Office.

If it's not there, a second option is to try a third party application like CleanApp. It's not free, but it's highly effective. It'll ferret out every file associated with MSOff. You can choose to delete or send to Trash.

Well, repairing disk permission didn't solve anything. I also tried uninstalling Office using Appzapper. No luck. Frustrating problem.