The steps to access the repair tool vary depending on your operating system. Unfortunately, there’s no general-purpose Microsoft Office document repair tool. If your documents are the cause of the problem, hopefully you have backup copies that haven’t been damaged.

• Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
• The Quick Repair option, as shown in Figure 2, is selected by default.
• When you run a Quick Repair operation, Office will attempt simple repairs using local files already on your PC.
• If a document has somehow been corrupted, it could crash Office.
• Comments that don't add value will be removed, including off-topic or content-free comments, or comments that look even a little bit like spam.
• With a backup copy of your workbook, you'll always have access to your data if your workbook is deleted accidentally or if it becomes corrupted.

Companies Seek Third-Party Support and Alternatives Amid Soaring Licensing Costs for VMware, Java, and Citrix

If you’re coming from section 2, grab the download link for what Microsoft calls the "uninstall support tool" in its Support pages. Its filename is SetupProd_Offscrub.exe, so I’ve gotten in the habit of calling it "OffScrub" myself. If you have to go this far during actual Office repairs, my condolences. You’re probably feeling pretty frustrated by now. We’re going to download and run a tool that completely obliterates your current Office installation. Then you’ll download and install a fresh, new installation from the Microsoft Office download page.

Step 3: Try the Microsoft SaRA

Unzip to a folder of your choosing, then run the file named SaraSetup.exe to install the program. You’ll see a dialog box like the one shown in Figure 9 open up and ask you to confirm installation. Just before the progress bar completed, a notification popped up to tell me that my Office install was Office 365 not syncing fix complete.

Recover data when the workbook is open in Excel

What a reset does is reset settings, history, and perhaps more that is specific to the configuration of the program. A recovery file of your workbook also helps ensure you'll have access to your data if your workbook is deleted accidentally or if it becomes corrupted. If neither automatic nor manual repair works, there are some recovery methods that might help salvage your data. Once you’ve installed the program, the home screen opens up, as shown in Figure 10. It includes options for Teams, Office, the Outlook desktop client, Outlook on the web, advanced diagnostics, and more. Then it took another 4 minutes and 24 seconds for the (genuine) progress bar shown above to download all the files.

Download and run OffScrub

Watching my network access while this was underway, I saw the typical on-again, off-again download behavior for Windows Update occurring here. The download meter ran as high as 180 Mbps, and as low as a few Kbps while the download was underway. Office’s Online Repair option works and goes through exactly the same steps as Quick Repair, so I won’t walk through all those screen shots again. Office installations include a built-in repair tool, and that’s the first place to turn when things go awry. The absolute worst case requires running a cleanup tool on the current Office installation, followed by a clean install of a new copy of Office. That has never failed in my experience, any time I’ve had to go that far.

Recover data from a corrupted workbook

With the Quick Repair radio button selected, click the Repair button near the bottom right corner of the window. Please relax, and don’t give in to panic or upset. This sort of thing does occur from time to time, and it is often quite easy to repair. If one or more Office apps is acting glitchy, work your way through this series of repair maneuvers, starting with the simplest.



When complete, a checkmark appears next to the Rest button. Click the Close button, then try your problem Office application again. In my experience, only 1 in 10 Office installations will still fail to work. If yours works, count yourself lucky and get back to your normal routine. A window opens to ask you if you’re ready to commence repairs.