Microsoft Word "Not Responding"

I've been using word recently, and I have found that every so often it stops working. 
It doesn't freeze as I would expect eg showing 'Not responding'.
It just doesn't allow me to continue typing, or even click on the word document. I have to wait a minute or so for it to continue working. 
So far I haven't lost any of my work, however it's not convenient when trying to write an essay to keep stopping and waiting for it to work. 

I have windows 8 and microsoft 2013 and my laptop is under a year old, so I can't understand where the issue is coming from.

Has anyone else had this issue? Does anyone know why it is occurring or how to solve it?


A lot of problems with Office 2013 are caused by third party (non-Microsoft) applications.  This is my (expanding) list of things to try when Office 2013\365 won’t start or crashes:

See the Article “Why can’t I start my Office 2013 application at:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/support/why-cant-i-start-my-office-2013-application-HA104011864.aspx

Refer to the following website for information on repairing Office 2013\365:


http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project-help/repair-or-remove-office-2010-HA010357402.aspx

See Office 2013 install woes - http://office-watch.com/t/n.aspx?a=1834

See the KnowledgeBase article “Office 2013 applications crash on launch at the splash screen” at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2813143

Or see the KnowledgeBase article Error: “Something went wrong and we can't sign you in right now” when trying to install Office 2013 at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2811180/en-us/

Also see my response in

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-word/microsoft-word-2013-has-stopped-working/67b81016-849f-481a-bce5-bf04797ac03b

Do you have Abbyy Finereader installed on the PC? A number of people have reported that removing it overcomes problems with 2013.  See:

Office programs may crash with the FineReader add-in installed at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2755838

Do you have “Fun Tools” add-in? A number of people have reported that removing it overcomes problems with 2013

Do you have Toshiba Book Reader installed on the PC?  It has been reported that uninstalling that brings Office back to working status.

Do you have the Acrobat PDFMaker add-in.  It has been reported that uninstalling that overcomes an issue with a message appearing that states "The document contains macros. Macro support for this application is disabled. Features requiring VBA are not available. Would you like to open this document as a read only?"

Also see:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-word/microsoft-word-has-stopped-working-when-i-close/8375b5b6-4f7e-46ed-a02b-90152ecad287#LastReply and

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_home-word/word-and-excel-2013-crashing-on-windows-7/5389390c-e989-4c8e-8fe0-62673f1410ce?page=4#LastReply

It appears that there may be some hardware incompatibilities as well.  If you have the NVIDIA driver
NVWGF2UM.DLL, try renaming it as: NVWGF2UM.old as was mentioned in:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-word/microsoft-word-has-stopped-working-when-i-close/8375b5b6-4f7e-46ed-a02b-90152ecad287#LastReply

From the File tab, select Options and then click on Advanced and then in the Display section of the dialog, check the box for Disable hardware graphics acceleration

For the error message "There was a problem sending the command to the program", use Windows Explorer to access the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15 folder and right click on WINWORD.EXE then on Properties, go to the Compatibility tab and uncheck all the boxes.  It has also been reported that the problem can be overcome by editing the registry at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open and deleting the ddeexec key.

The ddeexec can also be deleted from

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.DocumentMacroEnabled.12\shell\Open.

That fix is described at ...

http://www.dilloway.co.uk/there-was-a-problem-sending-the-command.html

It has been reported that uninstalling FastPictureView and FastPictureViewer Pro… overcomes the issue of the Minimize, Maximize, Close and Help buttons not being visible in Office 2013.

If you have a Canon 8350 printer, try using the Canon MF8000 UFRI LT XPS driver as detail in the post by Riad Amstha on April 14 in the thread at:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_365hp-word/office-2013-crashes-with-canon-8350-printer/e2bf6530-92e0-47ef-b6ec-e803a91793d0?page=3#LastReply

Hope this helps,
Doug Robbins - MVP Office Apps & Services (Word)
dougrobbinsmvp@gmail.com
It's time to replace ‘Diversity, Equity & Inclusion’ with ‘Excellence, Opportunity & Civility’ - V Ramaswamy

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Last updated October 5, 2021 Views 267 Applies to: