Microsoft Office not displaying icons, previews, and other buttons + not responding + crashing

2 more possibilities:

• Try starting the applications in "Safe Mode" to disable addins that may be causing the problem

• change your current "Hardware Acceleration" settings both in Windows and/or Office itself

**************** Safe Mode ****************

Shortcut to Start Word in Safe Mode or Excel in Safe Mode, Hold <CTL> key when clicking on icon or using the Start menu search window and entering WINWORD.EXE /a or WINWORD.EXE /safe Don’t Assume ANYTHING!

.

Don’t assume some part of the trouble shooting processes listed below doesn’t apply to you. Often there are things going on in the background that you just aren’t aware of. For example, when installing software it is all too easy to have an unwanted app installed if you don’t carefully read every screen.

.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Work-with-Office-safe-modes-dedf944a-5f4b-4afb-a453-528af4f7ac72

.

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/fix-microsoft-word-has-stopped-working

.

How to find out whether any Word Add-ins have been installed

.

Enable or disable add-ins in Office programs - Support - Office.com

.

************ Hardware Acceleration****************

Even though the symptoms described below may not be identical to yours, hardware acceleration has many "random" effects.

Screen Display Blurry – Blurred – Fuzzy – Hardware Acceleration Settings (in Windows op Office)

<snip>

Office 2010 respected the RGB font anti-aliasing as set by the Windows OS, so fonts were always clear in Word documents, Outlook emails etc.

Office 2013 ignores the Windows system font settings completely and belligerently imposes inferior grey-scale font anti-aliasing in document windows etc.

There are many many forums about this and no amount of tweaking, changing hardware, changing drivers nor even clean installing Windows makes the slightest difference.

The broken font rendering API used by Office 2013 and IE11 needs to be fixed.

</snip>

<snip why the fonts in word 2013 are blurry?>

Office 2013 does not support clear-type. Microsoft has toggled the clear-type switch to OFF without even telling the developers of Office and outlookpuntcom. a fine and applaudable technology is abandoned. Notice the default font is set to Calibri in these latest programs online and rich client installed and even in outlookpuntcom email composer. The best We can do now is change default to non_clear-type usage (maybe stick with true-type for Visio) and steer windows system settings away from clear-type rendering that we have appreciated while it lasted.

</snip>

I had a similar problem to that of Josephine21, and your suggestion of disabling the hardware acceleration worked! Thanks a million, because it was driving me crazy.

My symptoms were a bit different from hers. I would get a brief blackout, no more than a flicker, that would recur every few minutes. The screen would automatically restore, so I didn't have to click on anything to get back to normal. But the flickering was distracting and irritating.

My trouble started around August, 2020. after a couple of years with no problems.

Glad to hear it worked for you.

.

Sometimes the specific symptoms are identical, pointing to a fix.

Sometimes you have to generalize the symptoms and look for similar problems to try a fix.

.

Video is probably the most obvious subsystem, but audio and other subsystems can have these intermittent problems. Just because it worked yesterday does not mean it will work tomorrow.

Your computer is like a stack of Jenga ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenga ) sticks. Drawing the image on your screen goes (very approximately) something like this:

· The application uses code to "draw" the video screen,

· Application sends it's image to Windows in general

· Windows merges the various application window images

· Windows passes the merged Application window image to the video driver

· The video driver runs on the specific "video chip" or "video subsystem" of the CPU

· The video chip translates the screen image created by Windows into a language that your specific monitor can understand

· Video driver passes the image to the monitor

· Monitor hardware translates image into light "painted" by it's hardware

The thing is all of these pieces are not static. They are not glued in place. Any piece of code can be changed in big and small ways at any time:

· the application (ie Word 2013 made a signsignificant change to it's video code)

· Windows subsystem

· video driver

· Monitor (not so much)

A change in any place can cascade through the rest of the stream and cause new problems.

.

A key difference between Windows and other OS's, like Mac or IBM mainframes, is that Windows runs on "anything", while Mac and IBM mainframes run only on hardware they control.

I had a windows 10 update on 19 January 2018. The update took some time, so I guess it was a major update. When my computer restarted, both monitors did not display anything with the crispness they had before the update. I updated drivers for the monitors along with the graphics card. The monitors still look the way they looked after the update. Any ideas?

Try this:

. * Control Panel (icon view) > Color Management

. * click Profiles button

. * select Reset to reset my settings to the system defaults.

The text and displays are now clear and crisp again.

2017 08 ??“Official Reply” from MS- Office apps appear the wrong size or blurry on external monitors

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/office-apps-appear-the-wrong-size-or-blurry-on-external-monitors-bc9f7279-4e42-4b15-a949-46ab8bcfe44f?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us

This article suggest making sure your Office version / build number should be greater than: 16.0.7369.2024

In Aug 2017 it is already at version 1706 build 8229.2103, which is well beyond that number. So if you are still having the problem, this “fix” is not the answer for you.

Problem: After I install, Office looks blurry, black and white, or the screen flickers –

Solution: Tweak Hardware Acceleration

Problem: Word Slow / Excel Slow

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_word-mso_windows8/office-365-really-slow/b2656170-a2cd-47d5-8f22-35ab6027d3df?page=4&msgId=99dbb0f8-74b5-49d9-b4fc-59dd2dd15337

https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Why-do-I-get-a-stopped-working-message-when-I-start-my-Office-application-52bd7985-4e99-4a35-84c8-2d9b8301a2fa

<snip>

I have a Microsoft Word 2016 installed on my computer. Recently, when I was trying to open any .doc file using Word, the whole display has no text.

All the tool bars could work, but there's no display for any of them, and the text won't display either. It is surely not a hidden text, it must be something wrong with Office

</snip>

<snip>

Everytime I insert shapes in Word, Excel and powerpoint, its having another shape inside it automatically. Like when I insert an oval, it has diamond shape inside it as shown on the screenshot.

</snip>

<snip>

I systematically went through every single option disabling things that might effect it, and the dumbest solution and dumbest option for me was simple... . By “toggle”, I mean change current setting, for these 2 or 3 options (depending on version) try all of the combinations of the settings on and off. The specific options you see depend on the Office application and its year (2010/2013/2016).

1. File menu > Options command > Advanced option

2. Under Display section, select the “Disable hardware graphics acceleration” check box.

3. Also try changing the box for “Use subpixel positioning to smooth fonts on screen” (PowerPoint)

4. In the General section > Toggle the check box for “Feedback Animation” (2010 / 2013?)

5. Apply the changes by clicking on Ok button at bottom of the dialog box

6. Click Ok.

word 2016 options advanced hardware accel.jpg
(Screen Cap of 2016 Options Dialog with the options highlighted)

This issue is most noticeable on machines with dual video chip sets, ie. video support built into the CPU plus an external graphics card.

It didn’t have an immediate effect until I closed and re-opened Word, then it was fine. I unchecked the box and the screen flickered and it was sluggish again until I repeated the steps. The combination of the two options for whatever reason seems to have fixed for me.

</snip>

Another option to try is this:

Try disabling display scaling on high DPI settings

by following the steps below:

1. Open your Office installation folder and right-click on the Office app that has poor scaling issues and select Properties.

2. Click on the Compatibility tab and put a check on Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.

3. Launch that Office app and see if the issue still occurs.

Disable Hardware Acceleration In Windows

Open Run dialog using <WIN><R> shortcut

Type inetcpl.cpl

press Enter
Click Advanced Tab
Click to add Checkmark beside “Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering”
Click Apply button

click ok button

Restart the computer to apply this change

https://www.isumsoft.com/it/disable-hardware-graphic-acceleration-in-ms-office-2019-2013/

http://www.askvg.com/fix-bold-blurry-or-hard-to-read-font-problem-in-windows-8-1/

http://www.askvg.com/disable-hardware-graphics-acceleration-and-fix-blurred-font-and-cursor-hanging-problems-in-microsoft-office-2013/

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_home-word/office-2013-displaying-issues/f425da29-de7a-47b5-b0e9-8c2afd5817a9

After you have Office installed, if a document you create in an Office program looks blurry, displays as all black or all white, the screen flickers, or looks different on different computers, try changing your current “Hardware Acceleration” setting in Office

Office 365 doesn’t look right. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2768648

In any Office application switch current setting for “hardware graphic acceleration” :

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/trouble shoot/settings/office-display-issues

1. Click the File tab.

2. Click Options.

3. Click Advanced.

4. Under Display, select the Disable hardware graphics acceleration check box.

5. Also try changing the box for “Use subpixel positioning to smooth fonts on screen” (PowerPoint)

6. Click Ok.

.

Note OneNote does not have a Hardware Acceleration setting, use one of the other Office applications

OneNote UWP / Win10 Hardware Acceleration: http://www.onenotegem.com/a/faq/onenote-uwp/2019/1126/1239.html

.

Turn off High Contrast on Win and check the results. To turn off the high contrast, try the below steps:

. * Press Windows Key +R, type in Control Panel and click OK.

. * Click on Ease of Access, Ease of Access Center, and then click on Make the computer easier to see.

. * Uncheck all the options under “High contrast” and click on OK.

With hardware acceleration disabled, AirSpace device renders using software rendering (WARP) that relies mainly on the CPU and uses limited or no graphics card resources. You can cause a lower frame rate and increase in the working set. Performance becomes more dependent on CPU characteristics, like memory, number of cores, and on how many apps are open, and can strain the CPU resources.

On Windows 7, Office animations are disabled. On Windows 8, animations are enabled because of D2D WARP improvements found in Windows 8.

Workaround No workaround currently available.

With hardware acceleration disabled, screen renders (drawing) is done using software rendering (WARP) that relies mainly on the CPU and uses limited or no graphics card resources. You can cause a lower frame rate and increase in the working set. Performance becomes more dependent on CPU characteristics, like memory, number of cores, and on how many apps are open, and can strain the CPU resources.

On Windows 7, Office animations are disabled. On Windows 8, animations are enabled because of D2D WARP improvements found in Windows 8.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2813143 Problem with video file dlumd32.dll versions lower than 8.7.x.

I did fix this issue though. I check my graphics chip settings, and at some point, Word, OneNote and Outlook got changed to High Performance while the other programs in the suite were set to something else (I don’t remember what the setting was now, but it was clear that the offending programs had matching settings while the behaving programs matched each other).

I changed the graphics settings to match the behaving programs, and now everything works just fine.

I hope this helps anyone else out there that might be having the same strange problem.

Changed Outlook from ‘High Performance’ to ‘Power Saving’ in the Catalyst Control Center and it worked for me.

. · If you use Avast Antivirus version 10.3.2225,

. · upgrade to Windows 10,

. · your Office apps may crash when you try to open them.

. · install their R4 release here, which resolves the issue in most cases.

PowerPoint 2010 only has the Disable Hardware Acceleration option

PowerPoint 2016 has a second option, “Disable Slide Show Hardware Acceleration”.

One user reported that changing this second setting could enable/disable display of old Flash animations that had been embedded in presentations created in versions prior to PPT 2016.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/hardware-acceleration-windows-7

Registry “Hack” to Disable Hardware Acceleration in Office

1. Run regedit (Win + R ; “regedit”)

2. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common (16.0 is for Office 365, 2016, 2019)

3. Create a New Key and name it “Graphics”

4. Select Graphics, right-click on the right panel and create a New DWORD (32BIT) Value and name it DisableHardwareAcceleration.

5. Enter Value data as 1

NOTE: one person reported that TURN ON Hardware acceleration fixed lagging in Word. So if it was turned off when you checked, try turning it on …