Since upgrading to Office 2010 a few weeks ago, one of my users has been getting this error message "Word cannot open the existing file (Normal)" when she prints multiple word docs.  The error comes up multiple times, but not necessarily once for each document printed.  She is printing the documents from windows explorer, selecting around 10 documents at a time, right clicking and choosing 'print'.  The documents are saved in Office 97-2003 format.  

If she prints just one document at a time, she doesn't get this error.  I have tried deleting the normal template and letting word re-create it, but it didn't help.

What could be causing this?

Hi,

 

Start Word in default settings and check the results again.

 

 

Start Word 2010 using default settings

 

You can use the /a switch to start Word 2010 by using only the default settings in Word 2010. When you use the /a switch, Word does not load any add-ins. Additionally, Word 2010 does not use your existing Normal.dotm template. Restart Word 2010 by using the /a switch.

In Windows Vista and Windows 7

1.       Exit Word 2010

2.       Click Start

3.       In the Start Search box, type the following text, and then press ENTER:
"%programfiles%\microsoft office\office14\winword.exe" /a

 

In Windows XP

1.       Exit Word 2010

2.       Click Start, and then click Run.

3.       In the Open box, type the following text, and then press ENTER:
"%programfiles%\microsoft office\office14\winword.exe" /a

 

Also, try to repair the Office program from Control Panel > Programs and Features, right click the Office program and choose Change, then Repair.

 

Best Regards,

 

Sally Tang

TechNet Subscriber Support in forum

If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com  

Since we're printing the documents from a right click in explorer, I'm not sure how I could force them to open in the 'default settings' mode.  I did try opening word using the /a option and then, with word still open, selecting documents in explorer and right clicking to print, but still get the same error message.  Was that not what you had in mind?

Also, it's worth noting that this the end user who reported the problem was working on a 2008R2 Sp1 Terminal server that was freshly rebuilt and with a clean install of office 2010 pro plus, but I was able to reproduce the issue on my Windows 7 Enterprise sp1 workstation.

This is complete guesswork but, in some circumstances - possibly always, I don't know - Word 2010 behaves differently from earlier versions. I don't know if this is a feature, or a bug, but when you select multiple documents and then choose 'Open', Word 2010 opens multiple instances of Word, rather than opening all the document in a single instance.   If 'Print' exhibits similar behaviour, then maybe all the multiple instances trying to open Normal.dotm at the same time get tied  up in knots. If this is the case I don't think there is much you can do about it.  

That could be.  I'll give it a try and see if it is opening multiple process for this.  

Word does appear to be opening a separate winword.exe process for each document printed.  I don't have a machine with 2007 on it at this point to test with, so I can't say whether that's changed or not.  That would seem to explain though why the error doesn't come up for every document, and that it may come up a different number of times even when printing the same 10 documents over and over for testing.  

 

Is there an option in word to force it to open multiple documents in a single instance?  Or is there a better way for the user to print multiple documents?  We're talking about hundreds of documents a day, so doing each one individually would slow things down quite a bit.

Unfortunately, there are no options or work-arounds that I know. This is simply observed behaviour with no explanation from Microsoft.  

Ok.  Well, I can't say for certain that's the cause of the problem, but it's certainly plausible.  Hopefully someone from MS can chime in with further suggetions.

 

Thanks for the tip Tony

Questions:

If Word is launched and kept open prior to printing does it print without error?

Does printing from Outlook, with or without attachments result in the same error?

Is the desktop redirected?  and does the problem occur when the network goes down?

Possible Causes:

I have seen corrupt installs cause a similar behavior as well as bad permissions on the normal.dotm and normalemail.dotm

Next Steps:

Step 1:

Can you uninstall Office

AND rename the files %appdata%\Microsoft\Templates\normal.dotm and normalemail.dotm to .old and retest.

If you cannot rename, check the permissions and try taking ownership

%appdata%\Microsoft\Templates\normal.dotm and normalemail.dotm.

You will need reinstall Office

You may need to reboot, in order to retest.

Step 2:

1. Open Control Panel

2. Navigate to Folder Options and open it

3. Click the File Types tab

4. Select .doc and click Advanced

5. Select the first Print item in the Actions: list and click Edit…

6. Under “Application used to perform action:” type:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE" /n "%1" /mFilePrintDefault /mFileExit

(including quotes)

7. Uncheck “Use DDE”

8. Click OK

9. Click OK

10. Click Close

Note:  Regardless of the method used, opening the Print action via Folder Options will always cause “Use DDE” to be checked by default.  Accepting this default after the workaround has been implemented will not change Word’s behavior as long as none of the fields below it contain values.

A breakdown of what this command is doing is as follows:

1. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE" launches Word

2. /n causes Word to open without a new blank document

3. “%1” is a command line variable that will be replaced by the filename to be opened when it is run

4. /m allows a macro to be run at Word startup

     a. FilePrintDefault prints the open document to the default printer without prompting

      b. FileExit exits Word

Additional item of note, on printing multiple items from Explorer:

As I understand it, if you are in Windows Explorer and select multiple items to print >20 only 16 items actually print and the others are lost.

From my understanding this is by design, and is a feature to enhance the Windows 7 experience.  You can change this by editing the following registry key:

For example if you set your value  - you can print 200 items assuming you have the appropriate resources to support that (e.g. 8 GB). Again, modifying this value to such a high number is obviously resource intensive.

Depending on the number of files you wish to print and the frequency you may also want to consider a queuing system or macro to assist in this.

The following registry value may be modified to choose the number of files that may be selected while maintaining the context menu options.

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

Name : MultipleInvokePromptMinimum

Type : DWORD

Range: 1 - 16 (decimal)

Default : 15 (decimal)

A value of 16 is interpreted as "unlimited" – however you can set the value greater; although it is resource intensive and we would not suggest it.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2022295

Sincerely,

Susan

Microsoft Community Support 

• Proposed as answer by SusanBu - MSFTMicrosoft employee, Moderator Tuesday, May 17, 2011 9:42 PM
• Edited by SusanBu - MSFTMicrosoft employee, Moderator Tuesday, May 17, 2011 9:54 PM missing content
• Unproposed as answer by Gai-jin Thursday, May 26, 2011 2:35 PM

 

Questions:

 If Word is launched and kept open prior to printing does it print without error?

 Does printing from Outlook, with or without attachments result in the same error?

 Is the desktop redirected?  and does the problem occur when the network goes down?

 

1) No, if I open Word to a blank document and leave it open, then switch to an explorer window, select 10 documents, right click, and choose print, I get the same error message. 

2) Short answer, No.  Long answer, I'm not sure how to reproduce a similar situation with outlook.  If I select multiple emails, right click, and choose quick print, I don't get any error, but I also don't get multiple instances of outlook opening up, and it appears to create only one print job, containing all of the emails, rather than a separate job for each message.  So I'm not sure if this is really a similar enough task to be useful for troubleshooting.

3) I'm not sure what you mean by desktop redirected.  If you mean the user's profile folders, including the desktop folder, no, they are not redirected.  The original user was working from a thin client connected to a remote desktop session on a 2008R2 RDSH.  I've also reproduced the error locally on my desktop PC.  We haven't had any network outages that coincide with the error.  So far, the error seems to be completely reproduceable at will, although the actual number of error dialogs we see does vary from instance to instance.

 

I'll try to work through the other suggested steps you have listed.  I'm going to throw our standard image on a vm to confirm whether the error occurs there, and to follow your test steps.  I'll get back to you with results.

 

 

 

Next Steps:

 Step 1:

 Can you uninstall Office

AND rename the files %appdata%\Microsoft\Templates\normal.dotm and normalemail.dotm to .old and retest.

If you cannot rename, check the permissions and try taking ownership

%appdata%\Microsoft\Templates\normal.dotm and normalemail.dotm.

You will need reinstall Office

You may need to reboot, in order to retest.

Step 2:

1. Open Control Panel

2. Navigate to Folder Options and open it

3. Click the File Types tab

4. Select .doc and click Advanced

5. Select the first Print item in the Actions: list and click Edit…

6. Under “Application used to perform action:” type:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE" /n "%1" /mFilePrintDefault /mFileExit

(including quotes)

7. Uncheck “Use DDE”

8. Click OK

9. Click OK

10. Click Close

Note:  Regardless of the method used, opening the Print action via Folder Options will always cause “Use DDE” to be checked by default.  Accepting this default after the workaround has been implemented will not change Word’s behavior as long as none of the fields below it contain values.

A breakdown of what this command is doing is as follows:

1. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE" launches Word

2. /n causes Word to open without a new blank document

3. “%1” is a command line variable that will be replaced by the filename to be opened when it is run

4. /m allows a macro to be run at Word startup

     a. FilePrintDefault prints the open document to the default printer without prompting

      b. FileExit exits Word 

 

Okay, It took me a few days to get back to this.  For Step 1, I built a VM with a fresh install of Windows 7 enterprise and Office ProPlus 2010, instead of uninstalling and re-installing.  I confirmed that before opening word for the first time, the %appdata%\microsoft\templates directory did not exist.  I opened word once, and the templates were created.  I then closed word and tried to print 10 documents from windows explorer using the right click > print, and am still getting errors.

For Step 2, your directions don't match what I'm seeing.  There is no File Types tab in the Folder Options panel.  I tried going to the Default Programs panel instead, and then to Associate a file type or protocol with a program, but I am not seeing any way to set advanced properties for a file type.  

At this point, I would recoommend you call in your question for paid support so that we can actively troubleshoot the issue with you live.    Your question requires a more in-depth level of support that can be offered online.  Please visit the link below to see the various paid support options that are available to better meet your needs.

 

Regards,

Susan

Microsoft Online Community Support

 

 

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?id=fh;en-us;offerprophone

 

Before I do that, could someone here take a minute to try and reproduce this?  I'd like to know if it's just me, or if it's doing the same thing for everyone.

 

If anyone is willing, I'd appreciate it.  I'd recommend opening your printer in windows and setting it to 'Pause printing', so you can go back in later and cancel the jobs and not actually have them print.  Here are the steps to repro:

1) Open windows explorer

2) Browse to a folder with 10 or more word documents

3) Shift Click to select 10 word documents

4) Right click on one of the selected documents and select PRINT from the context menu

5) Watch as word opens each document and sends it to the print queue.  Does word give any errors?

Oh yeah, same errors here. . . every time you try and multiple print docs from either a folder, or trying the "right click to print" workaround when in word and "opening" files fails.  Same issue - "another user" has the normal.dot template open and Word keeps on asking if I want to update/re-save.

 

Lol @ the response - I know we're not the only folks who are experiencing this, and it sounds like this is less of a "error" as much as it is something that is endemic to Word 7.  *shrugs*

"paid support options" - gotta love it.

 

 

It could very well be an addin or macro that is starting that is causing the problem.  I have seen COM Addins do something similar.  You could remove all COM addins and items in the Word startup folder as an additional test.  

 

Sincerely,

Susan

SusanBu -- 

Is that the c:\program files (x86)\microsoft office\office14\startup ?   If so, there's nothing in that folder.  This is a clean office install on top of a clean windows install, on a vm only used for testing this issue. 

 

Have you tried reproducing this issue on your end?  It seems like it would be fairly simple for you to test.  If you can reproduce the issue then we know it's something wrong with office 2010, windows 7, or the combination of the two, and maybe you could send something on to the office team for further testing?

I can confirm this problem as well. It is present at two of my large customers in retailing and finance sectors. I'll open an 'paid support' case. If there's a general solution to this I'll post it here.

Carl

1. Open Word
2. Select the desired printer to not print on default printer defined in Windows.File-> Print-> Printer
3. Press Ctrl + O (or File-> Open)
4. In the dialog box to open the document, scroll to the folder you have your documents in and select one or more documents to be printed
5. Choose Print from the Tools button
   

This will print all selected records from the current instance of Word.

Selecting multiple documents in Windows Explorer and select print opens one instance of Winword.exe per document print and close the instance. If printing multiple documents there is a high risk of an instance being open when another is closing down which causes the error 'The file is in use by another application or user. C:\....\Normal.dotm'.

I believe this is a workaround rather than a solution, at least until there is an official statement from Microsoft that this behavior is by design.

Sorry for the formatting but hope this helps,

Carl

Carl -- Brilliant workaround!  I'll give this a try today.  It's not ideal, but if it works,my users will be happy.  Hopefully their need to print so many documents each day will only last a few more months, and this will make the task easier for them while it lasts.

 

Thanks!

Ugh.  I'm sorry to say that doesn't seem to match what I'm seeing here.  When I get to the open dialog, I can select multiple documents as you suggest, but the 'Tools' button only has one option under it, "Map Network Drive".  I have an option to print from that button.

I did try right clicking the selected documents within that dialog and selecting print from the context menu.  That way, the behavior does seem to be different, but I still get a couple of error messages and not all of the documents print.  In this case, I selected 10 documents.  8 printed successfully, but for the other 2 I received an error message reading: "The command cannot be performed because a dialog box is open.  Click OK, and then close open dialog boxes to continue."  While the error message is different, I think it's running into the same core problem. 

 

 

Sorry to hear it didn't work for you. I have the workaround in place and working at my customers while waiting to be assigned to a Microsoft support engineer. I'll post any updates.

 

Some additional observations

• The print option from the open dialog is only present when running on WinXP. When running on Win7 I too only have "Map Network Drive"
• On my customers WinXP SP3 machines we have not yet upgraded to SP1 for Office 2010
• On my PC
• On Win7; when selecting 15 or fewer word documents (mixed doc and docx) the context menu have the print option but when selecting 16 or more documents the print option (or open etc) is not there...
• When selecting 15 documents and select print in Windows Explorer; my Win7 machine plays nice and opens 15 instances of Word 2010 for the documents but the printing is done in sequence, ie only one document at the time actually prints. When a document is printed, the next one starts to print. This isunless there is a dialoge box during a print job, eg margin error, in this case the next document starts to print and there is a "general" error. I have an Intel Core2 Duo T9600@2,8GHz 8 GB RAM running Win7 x64 with Office 2010 SP1 (32-bit) laptop with SSD drives so if this works differently from your experience resources might be an issue.

/Carl

• Edited by Carl Nakamura Thursday, July 14, 2011 9:54 AM added info

We had this happen after upgrading to Office 2010 and it turned out to be the Universal printer driver for our HP printers.  Using PCL6 version, unable to print multiple documents. Used the PS (PostScript) version of the printer driver and no problems. Tried updating to the latest version HP Universal Driver PCL6 5.3 for XP and still had the same problem.

I was able to correct this on one of our machines by disabling the COM Add-in for bluetooth. 

I hope this helps. 

Has anyone found a solution to this problem.

When I select few MS Word documents to print in an explorer window I get several of the following messages after printing just one or two pages.

The command cannot be performed because a dialog box....

There has to be a solution other than opening or selecting each word document separately to print.

Office 2010

Windows 7

Any news on whether this was resolved. Same problem for me. Often have to print dozens of files a day and having to do them individually (from Explorer with Right click / print). With Word 2003 and then 2007 I was able to print up to 16 (I can see from above you can up this default amount) without any issues whatsoever.

...and if I open say 50 word documents at the same time from within Word (File/Open) and then print each one individually, Word also then asks me to save each one (i.e. I've got to save 50 times)

For home use where you may only want to print the occasional document this is not a problem, but for a business which is trying to increase efficiency, Word 2010 has been definitely a retrograde step.

Office 2010

Windows Server 2008R2

Microsoft must know about this - in the meantime any solutions out there!? Thanks.

This problem plagued us for months and nothing helped. Even rebuilt the computer to try and fix. Changed network cables applied fixes, updated drivers, applied patches etc etc etc.

Found eventually that it was due to our HP printers and the Universal printer drivers they use.

We were testing Dell printers and decided to try with a different printer.  Guess what - no more message from Word. Still opens and closes with each document but completes printing all documents.

We went and bought a Dell 2350dn Laser Printer to overcome. Since then no errors when printing multiple documents. Comfirmed again with user today just to make sure and they have not had the message since.

Dell workstations, Win 7 32bit, Office 2010 and Win Server 2008R2.

Anyone with a fix?  No Hp universal printer drivers installed or Bluetooth Com addin. Checked for HP drivers using printui /s /t2.

Thanks

I feel your frustration and after several months of struggling with this, I now do the following:

Highlight all documents to print.

Right click and choose Select (all documents selected will open).

Run the following Macro:

Sub PrintAllDocs()
    ' Step through the open document windows
    For Each Doc In Documents
        Doc.PrintOut
    Next Doc
    ActiveWindow.Close
       
    With Application
        .ScreenUpdating = False
        
         'Loop Through open documents
        Do Until .Documents.Count = 0
             'Close no save
            .Documents(1).Close SaveChanges:=wdDoNotSaveChanges
        Loop
        
    End With
End Sub

This will print all documents and close them without exiting Word.  This has saved me tons of time of having to print and close each document individually.  I'm a medical transcriptionist and needed the ability to print 40 or more documents at once.  Hope you find this helpful.

• Proposed as answer by choosehope Wednesday, October 24, 2012 6:00 PM

So I just resolved this issue for us:

I found that our user was using the explorer to preview word documents rather than opening them.  If you look in the processes in the taskmgr, you will find word is open.  This "extra" Word process is the previewer.  Once I closed the word process being used for preview we could get multiple pages to print without issue.

There may be a way to set it so the the previewer is not used, i don't have that answer but this should point some of you in the right direction at least.

Best Regards

• Proposed as answer by Jssfrk4lf 18 hours 52 minutes ago