Program Opens without the Desired Document

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 14, 2019)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Ed notes that on occasion he'll select a Word document from the recent documents list in Windows. Word then loads, but the document itself won't open. Ed wonders why this occurs.

If this happened with each document, no matter which one you clicked on, then the problem would likely be with how Word is registered with Windows. (In other words, what Windows thinks should happen when you double-click a document.) Since it occurs only on some documents, then the problem more than likely lies elsewhere.

The likely culprit is that if the document has been renamed, deleted, or moved to a different folder, the link in recent documents list maintained by Windows will no longer point to the document. If you double-click the link, then Windows tries to open the document at the old, pre-move location. Since it can't find it there, it leaves Word open, but does not load the unfound document.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6832) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Automatically Creating Charts for Individual Rows in a Data Table

If you have a lot of records in a data table, you may want to create individual charts based on the information in those ...

Discover More

Aligning Paragraphs in a Macro

Using a macro to format your document (or portions of your document) is not all that uncommon. If you want your macro to ...

Discover More

Setting Print Titles

Excel allows you to specify certain rows or columns that will be repeated on the pages of a printout. Here's how to set ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!

More WordTips (menu)

Understanding Unicode Characters

Unicode is a character-encoding scheme that works with a huge variety of characters. This tip explains what Unicode is ...

Discover More

Unwanted Graph Paper Effect

When you open a document or start to use Word, do you see a background that looks like graph paper? It could be because ...

Discover More

Fonts Missing in Word

What are you to do if you find that you have no fonts available in Word, but they are available in other programs? There ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 7 - 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.