Unable to Open Word or Excel Attachments in Outlook? Here’s What To Do
Outlook is a popular email client worldwide, especially in the business community. During the email exchange, people often share different files as attachments like Word file or Excel sheet. Users on the receiving end complain about getting an error which is “Outlook 2016 Error While Opening Word or Excel Attachment and Files.” If you have encountered the same error and looking for its solution, read this blog. Here we will share some proven techniques to fix this error.
Reasons for Error While Opening Word or Excel Attachment and Files in Outlook
- Incorrect Outlook Trust Center settings may block attachments to prevent unsafe access to the file.
- Incorrect registry entries or registry misconfiguration can also break attachment handling.
- MS Outlook stores its attachments in a temp folder. If this gets overloaded or corrupted, the temporary files conflict may result in issues.
- If your preview handler configuration is faulty i.e., the preview handlers are missing or corrupted, attachments won’t open in preview mode.
Now that we know the reasons behind this Outlook 2021, 2019, 2016 error, let us move on to the section where resolving approaches will be discussed.
Top Methods to Try When You are Unable to Open Word or Excel Attachments in Outlook
- Fix Microsoft Trust Center Settings
- Fix Preview Handler via Registry
- Use Expert Suggested Automated Solution
These are the top 3 approaches to resolve this error. Try them one by one to fix error while Opening Word or Excel Attachment and files in Outlook.
Method 1: Fix Microsoft Trust Center Settings
Outlook, MS Word, and MS Excel – all are components of MS Office suite. Hence, MS Office Trust Center settings affect all of these. If you suspect that the error is occurring due to Trust Center Setting, fix it using these quick steps:
- Open MSWord and navigate to File -> Options -> Trust Center.
- Access Trust Center Settings and choose Protected View from the left pane.
- On right side, uncheck the option: Enable Protected View for Outlook attachments.
- Click on OK two times on Trust Center window and Word Options.
- Close MS Word.
- Open MS Outlook and try to open any emails with Word file attachment.
- Repeat these steps for Microsoft Excel too.
Method 2: Fix Preview Handler via Registry
If the Trust Center settings change is unable to fix Outlook 2016 Error While Opening Word or Excel Attachment and Files, try to enter the correct registry entry in Preview Handler.
- On Windows computer, press Windows + R keys together to open Run window.
- Type regedit on that windows and hit Enter.
- Search and navigate to this folder:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PreviewHandlers
- Make sure that the entries for Word and Excel exist.
Warning: Make sure to back up the whole Registry before making any changes.
Method 3: Fix Corruption Issues with Automated Approach
If you are getting “Outlook 2021, 2019, 2016 Error While Opening Word or Excel Attachment and Files” even after applying these free methods, your Outlook PST file may have some severe damage issues. You can try download scanpst.exe to fix this error, but this is an outdated method. Modern day PST file corruptions are more stubborn than before. Hence, you need an up-to-date and sophisticated application like SysTools PST Recovery Tool.
Using this software, all types of PST files including ANSI, Unicode, Archived, Orphan, Encrypted, etc., can be repaired. This application does not even need Outlook installation on the same system. Users can install this tool on any computer and fix corruption without any trouble. The best thing about this software is, it comes in a simple interface and the recovery process requires only a few steps.
Steps to Fix “Outlook 2016 Word and Excel Attachment Preview Not Working” Error
- Download and launch the SysTools PST Repair Tool on your system.
- Add PST file from any location of your computer.
- Choose scanning mode depending on severity of corruption.
- All the corrupted fields will be removed and presented for preview.
- Save the data in PST or any other preferred format.
That’s it. import the resultant file in Outlook, and you will find that “Outlook 2016 Error While Opening Word or Excel Attachment and Files” is gone. Now, you can open any attachment file on Outlook without any annoying error.
Highlighted Features of the Application
- Recover permanently data from Outlook files generated from any Outlook
- Recover emails, attachments, contacts, calendar, tasks, journal, and notes
- Quick and Advance scanning method for different corruption levels
- Search PST feature to find PST files from any unknown location
- Recover deleted data and highlight them in red color during preview
- Ability to recover data from BAK files generated from scanpst.exe
Conclusion
“Outlook 2016 Error While Opening Word or Excel Attachment and Files” prohibits you from opening attachments files that come along the emails. To stop this error from occurring, you have to follow the methods mentioned in this blog. If the free manual methods are not enough, the final option is to use the automated tool. It offers complete remedy against all kinds of Outlook errors and repairs PST files without ScanPST.exe to return them in healthy state.
