Word Keeps Crashing or Closing Itself? Try These Fixes First

Unexpected Word crashes are usually caused by one of a few specific things: a misbehaving add-in, a corrupted template file, a damaged document, or a font conflict. The fixes below go from quickest to most involved.

1. Let the built-in repair finish completely

If Word shows a dialog offering to repair the document, let it run all the way through rather than force-closing partway. This sounds obvious, but interrupting the repair process partway is itself a common cause of the same crash repeating on every subsequent open.

2. Disable add-ins, one at a time

Add-ins are one of the most frequent causes of crashes that seem random, since a single misbehaving add-in can destabilize the entire app, not just the feature it's supposed to add.

1. Open Word, go to File > Options > Add-ins.
2. At the bottom, next to "Manage," select COM Add-ins and click Go.
3. Uncheck all add-ins and restart Word. If it stops crashing, that confirms an add-in is the cause.
4. Re-enable them one at a time, using Word normally between each, until you identify which specific one triggers the crash.

3. Start Word in Safe Mode to isolate the cause

Safe Mode opens Word without add-ins, custom templates, or certain customizations loaded, which helps determine whether the crash is caused by something in your setup or something deeper in the installation itself.

• Windows: hold Ctrl while clicking the Word icon, or run winword /safe from the Run dialog (Win + R).
• If Word runs fine in Safe Mode but crashes normally, the cause is almost certainly an add-in or a corrupted template, not the core installation.

4. Reset the Normal template

The Normal template (Normal.dotm) stores default styles and settings, and a corrupted copy is a classic, well-documented cause of crashes that happen specifically when opening or creating documents, rather than at random moments.

1. Close Word completely.
2. Navigate to %appdata%\Microsoft\Templates in File Explorer.
3. Rename Normal.dotm to something like Normal.old — don't delete it outright in case you need to restore it.
4. Reopen Word. It will automatically generate a fresh, clean Normal template.

5. Check if it's one specific document, not Word itself

If only one particular file triggers the crash, while new blank documents work fine, the document itself is likely damaged rather than Word being broken generally.

• Try opening the file using File > Open, then selecting the small dropdown arrow next to the Open button, and choosing Open and Repair.
• If that fails, try opening it in Word for the web instead of the desktop app — sometimes this succeeds even when the desktop client can't handle whatever's corrupted in the file, and lets you at least recover the text by copying it into a new document.

6. Run Office's built-in repair tool

If crashes happen across multiple unrelated documents and the steps above haven't helped, the Office installation itself may need repairing.

1. Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features (or Settings > Apps on newer Windows versions).
2. Find Microsoft 365 / Office in the list, click it, then select Change or Modify.
3. Choose Quick Repair first — it's faster and resolves most issues. If that doesn't help, run Online Repair, which is more thorough but takes longer and requires an internet connection.

7. Check for font conflicts

Less common, but worth knowing: a corrupted or conflicting font installed on your system can cause Word to crash specifically when rendering documents that use that font. If crashes started right after installing new fonts, that's a strong lead — try temporarily uninstalling recently added fonts to test.

The bottom line

Crashes that happen with every document point toward an add-in or a corrupted Normal template; crashes tied to one specific file point toward document corruption instead. Identifying which category you're in before troubleshooting saves a lot of wasted effort.