How to Fix the “Error Word Experienced an Error Trying to Open the File”

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In this video, I’ll show you how to Fix the Error ” Word Experienced an Error Trying to Open the File.”


Microsoft Word will give off this error whenever you try to open a document downloaded from the internet and it’s meant to protect your computer from harmful or malicious viruses.

Video Transcript.

In this video, I’ll show you how to fix the error “Word experienced an error trying to open the file”.

Hi, my name is David.

And if you’ve downloaded a Word document from let’s say, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc, to your computer, and you try to open it using Microsoft Word, and you get that particular error, this video is for you.

So I’ll begin by showing you what the error looks like.

I have this particular file open on my documents, that is the downloads.

And if I just double click on it, it’s a Microsoft Word document.

I get this particular error, “Word experienced an error trying to open the file.”

Try the suggestions;

-check the file permissions for the document or drive,

-make sure they sufficient free memory or disk space,

-or open the file with a text recovery converter.

Now, this is not the issue, and I can just replicate it again.

I’ll just come to file, and this is on Google Docs, download.

And then Microsoft Word and once it downloads, if I just click on Open the file, I get the same error.

This error is due to the fact that Microsoft Word in quotes doesn’t want to get your computer infected, while opening files downloaded over the internet.

So what you need to do to ensure that these files open is go up to File > options > the Trust Center.

And then go to the Trust Center settings.

And inside the Trust Center settings, navigate to protected view.

And from the protected view, protected view opens potentially dangerous files without any security prompts.

In a restricted mode to help minimize harm to your computer, by disabling protected view, you could be exposing your computer to possible security threats.

Now I know the particular files that I’m opening from the internet don’t have any security concern.

So the only thing I need to do here is just untick “enable protected view for files originating from the internet”.

So I’ll just uncheck this, and then click on OK.

Click OK.

And if I go back to my browser and open the file again, it’s going to open inside Microsoft Word.

So that’s how you can fix the error of Word not opening or trying to open that particular file and it’s not able to open that particular file.

It’s that simple.

I hope this video has been of value.

My name is David. Until next time, stay safe and never stop learning.

Thank you for watching.

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