Word not responding: how to fix it on Windows

Applies to: Word for Microsoft 365 and Word 2016, 2019, 2021 and 2024 on Windows 11 and 10. If Excel is the program that freezes, our Excel not responding guide covers workbook-specific causes such as heavy formulas. If Word opens but says it’s unlicensed or in reduced functionality mode, see Word product activation failed instead.

Match your symptom

What you see	Likely cause	Start with
Freezes for a while, then carries on	Saving to a slow drive, printing, a large file or a busy add-in	Step 1
Only one document hangs, others are fine	Damage or heavy content in that file	Step 2, Step 7
Hangs as soon as Word starts, before any file opens	Add-in, startup file or Normal.dotm	Step 3 to Step 5
Fine in safe mode, hangs normally	Add-in, startup template or Normal.dotm	Step 4, Step 5
Hangs even in safe mode	Word settings, printer driver or a damaged install	Step 6, Step 8, Step 9
Hangs when you print, preview or change layout	Default printer driver	Step 8
Started straight after an update	A known issue	Known issues

Step 1: Rescue your work

A Not Responding label in the title bar doesn’t always mean Word has crashed. It may simply be busy: saving to a network share or a USB stick, sending a long document to the printer, opening a file full of images, or waiting on an add-in. Every extra click adds to the queue, so wait a minute or two. Also check the taskbar for a second Word window, because an open dialog box hidden behind the document can make Word look stuck.

If Word doesn’t recover, right-click the taskbar, open Task Manager, select Microsoft Word and choose End task. Changes since your last save may still be in Word’s AutoRecover files. Microsoft’s article on recovering lost or unsaved Word documents describes where to look:

1. Start Word again. If it finds AutoRecover files, the Document Recovery pane opens and lists them as [Original] or [Recovered]. Open the one you want and save it straight away with File > Save As.
2. If no pane appears, go to File > Info > Manage Document > Recover Unsaved Documents and look for your file.
3. Still nothing? Search the PC for files ending in .asd (AutoRecover) or .wbk (backup copies, only made if Always create backup copy is turned on). Open them in Word through File > Open > Browse with the file type set to All Files.

To lose less next time, keep AutoSave on for files stored in OneDrive or SharePoint. For files on your PC, Microsoft recommends leaving AutoRecover on with a save interval of five minutes or less; you’ll find it under File > Options > Save.

Step 2: One document or all of them?

This one test decides where you go next. Open a new blank document and a couple of other files. If they work normally and only one document hangs, the document is the problem, so go to Step 7. If every file hangs, or Word freezes before you open anything, the cause is in Word’s add-ins, templates, settings or installation, so carry on with Step 3.

It’s also worth checking another Office app, such as Excel or Outlook. Microsoft notes that if other Office programs misbehave in the same way, the cause may lie with Office as a whole or with Windows rather than with Word, which makes Step 9 more likely to help.

Step 3: Start Word in safe mode

Safe mode starts Word without the extras that normally load with it, which splits the problem in two. Microsoft’s safe mode page gives two ways in:

• Ctrl key: hold Ctrl while you open Word from its shortcut, and select Yes when asked whether to start in safe mode.
• Run box: close Word, press Win + R, type winword /safe and select OK.

The title bar shows Safe Mode when it worked. In this mode Word doesn’t save preferences or templates, doesn’t load your AutoCorrect list and doesn’t reopen recovered documents automatically, so treat it as a test, not a place to work. Close Word and open it normally to leave safe mode.

Microsoft’s main Word troubleshooting article uses a related switch, winword /a, which stops add-ins and global templates from loading. Both tests point the same way. If Word runs smoothly, work through Steps 4 and 5. If it hangs even here, skip to Step 6.

Step 4: Find the add-in or startup file

Add-ins come from other software, such as PDF tools, reference managers, document management systems and meeting apps, and they run inside Word. Start with the COM add-in list at File > Options > Add-ins: choose COM Add-ins under Manage, select Go, clear all the boxes and restart Word. If the hang is gone, tick them again one at a time, restarting Word after each, until it returns. Our copy and paste guide walks through the same test if you’d like each click spelled out.

Word also opens every template and add-in in its startup folders automatically, and these don’t always appear in the COM list. Close Word, paste this into the File Explorer address bar and press Enter:

%appdata%\Microsoft\Word\Startup

Rename one file at a time by adding .old to the end of its name, then start Word. Note the original names so you can put them back. If renaming a file stops the hang, that file is the culprit; restore its name only once its maker has an update. If the folder is empty or nothing changes, Microsoft lists a second startup folder inside the Office program folder; for most current Microsoft 365 installs it’s %programfiles%\Microsoft Office\root\office16\Startup. Test its files the same way.

Step 5: Replace Normal.dotm

Normal.dotm is the global template behind every new document. It holds your default styles, AutoText entries and any macros saved to it, and if it’s damaged Word can hang at launch or whenever it creates a document.

Before you start: renaming the template resets custom styles, toolbars, macros and AutoText entries to their defaults. Microsoft strongly recommends keeping the old file rather than deleting it, so copy Normal.dotm from %appdata%\Microsoft\Templates to another folder first. You can later bring customizations back from the old file with the Organizer.

Close Word and every other Office app, open Command Prompt and run:

ren %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\Normal.dotm OldNormal.dotm

Start Word, and it builds a fresh template. If the hang has gone, keep the new file. If nothing changed, the template wasn’t the cause: close Word and put the original back with:

ren %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\OldNormal.dotm Normal.dotm

Step 6: Reset Word’s settings in the registry

If Word hangs even in safe mode, a damaged setting may be to blame. Word keeps frequently used settings in two registry keys, Data and Options, and rebuilds both with default values when they’re missing. The Microsoft Word troubleshooting article uses this as a later step.

Warning before you edit the registry: a wrong change can cause serious problems in Windows. Export each key before deleting it, as below, so you can restore it with a double-click. Deleting the Data key clears your recent files list and other customized settings. On a work PC, ask IT before changing the registry.

1. Close all Office apps. Press Win + R, type regedit and select OK.
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word\Data. The 16.0 folder covers Word 2016 and later, including Microsoft 365.
3. With Data selected, choose File > Export and save it to the desktop as Wddata.reg.
4. Select Edit > Delete and confirm with Yes. Close Registry Editor and start Word.
5. If Word still hangs, repeat the export and delete for HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word\Options, saving the export as Wdoptn.reg so the two backups don’t get mixed up.

If the reset didn’t help, double-click the matching .reg file on the desktop and confirm to restore your old settings.

Step 7: Fix a damaged document

Microsoft’s article on damaged Word documents lists a computer that stops responding when a file opens as one sign of damage, along with constant repagination and strange characters. Try these in order and work on a copy of the file:

• Open and Repair: in Word go to File > Open and browse to the file. Select it once, then select the arrow next to Open and choose Open and Repair.
• Open it lightly: switch to View > Draft. Under File > Options > Advanced, tick Show picture placeholders and Use draft font in Draft and Outline views, and under General clear Update automatic links at open. Close Word and open the document again. Links to other files and large numbers of images can make a document slow to open.
• Pull the text into a new file: create a blank document and choose Insert > Object > Text from File. This leaves behind the final paragraph mark, which holds much of the document’s formatting information, though you may need to redo the formatting in the last section.
• Save through another format: if the document opens but keeps freezing, save a copy as Rich Text Format, close it, open the RTF and save it again as a Word document under a new name.

If a hang starts only with documents built from one template, for example a company letterhead, the template attached to them may be the damaged part. File > Options > Add-ins, then Templates under Manage, shows which template a document uses.

Step 8: Test a different default printer

Word lays out pages for the default printer, so a faulty printer driver can freeze it while it repaginates, previews or opens a file. Microsoft’s test is to make Microsoft XPS Document Writer the default printer and see whether the problem stops. If your PC no longer has the XPS writer, Microsoft Print to PDF can serve as a stand-in for the same test.

1. Close Word. Open Settings and go to Printers & scanners (under Bluetooth & devices in Windows 11, Devices in Windows 10).
2. If Let Windows manage my default printer is shown and turned on, turn it off so your choice sticks.
3. Select the XPS or PDF printer and choose Set as default, then start Word.

If Word now behaves, update or reinstall the driver for your real printer from its maker, then set it back as the default. Page layout that shifts when you change printers is normal, and our guide to how the selected printer changes Word’s preview explains why.

Step 9: Update and repair Office

Many freezes are bugs that a later build fixes, so install updates first: in Word go to File > Account > Update Options > Update Now, then run Windows Update. Microsoft also suggests updating video card, printer, mouse and keyboard drivers from the hardware maker when Office apps keep failing. On a managed PC, IT may control when Office updates arrive.

If Word still hangs, repair Office. Close all Office apps, open Installed apps in Settings (Apps and Features in Windows 10), find Microsoft 365 or your Office version, choose Modify and run Quick Repair, which replaces damaged program files. If that doesn’t help, run Online Repair, which is more thorough, takes longer and needs an internet connection. The repair section of our Excel guide explains the difference between the two in more detail.

A few other things can freeze Word on any PC: security software that scans every document Word opens, and documents opened straight from a slow network share or a syncing folder. Save a copy to the desktop and open that to rule out the location. Don’t turn off antivirus protection on a work PC; ask IT instead.

Known issues

As of November 2026, Microsoft’s fixes and workarounds page for Word for Windows (last updated September 2026) lists one open item about Word crashing: a crash during mail merge with .dot or .dotm templates, still under investigation. Entries marked fixed include a hang when activating embedded package objects after update KB5002542, Word, Excel or Outlook not responding after update KB5002700 for Office 2016, and crashes with the iManage Work Desktop add-in. The page doesn’t date its entries, so if Word started freezing right after an update, check it for a match before working through the steps above.

Related guides

• Excel not responding: how to fix freezes and hangs
• Copy and paste not working in Word: how to fix it
• Print preview different from the document in Word: why and how to fix it
• Word Product Activation Failed: 7 Ways to Fix It
• How to recover an unsaved Word document

Official sources

• Microsoft: Troubleshoot problems that occur when you start or use Word
• Microsoft: Open Office apps in safe mode on a Windows PC
• Microsoft: Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in Word for Windows