Microsoft Office 2013 Word & Excel crashing

Problem

When trying to open Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel they crash.

office crashing 1

Cause

This is caused by ABBYY FineReader and will display as “BEX” information after an error log in the event viewer(do not worry if you don’t know what this means just continue to the solution).
ABBYY FineReader has a “COM Add-in” for Microsoft Word & Microsoft Excel.

Solution

This can be resolved by disabling the “COM Add-in” but this is done separately in each program.

Microsoft Word

1. Hold the Windows key & press “R” to open a “Run” dialog.

2. Type “winword /safe” or copy and paste the text below and press “Enter”

winword /safe

3. Microsoft Word should now open in safemode.

word safemode

4. Click “File” then “Options”

options

5. Click “Add-ins”

options-add-ins

6. At the bottom you will see “Manage”, make sure this is set to “COM Add-ins” and click “Go…”

manage add-ins

7. Uncheck “ABBYY FineReader xxxxxxx COM Add-in” and click “OK”

Word-COM-Add-in

8. Now close all the open windows and restart Microsoft Word as normal.

You might need to disable all the ABBYY FineReader Add-ins.

Microsoft Excel

1. Hold the Windows key & press “R” to open a “Run” dialog.

2. Type “excel /safe” or copy and paste the text below and press “Enter”

excel /safe

3. Microsoft Excel should now open in safemode.

excel safemode

4. Click “File” then “Options”

options

5. Click “Add-ins”

options-add-ins

6. At the bottom you will see “Manage”, make sure this is set to “COM Add-ins” and click “Go…”

manage add-ins

7. Uncheck “ABBYY FineReader xxxxxxx COM Add-in” and click “OK”

Word-COM-Add-in

8. Now close all the open windows and restart Microsoft Excel as normal.

You might need to disable all the ABBYY FineReader Add-ins.

48 comments

  1. Thank you!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!!! I have been struggling to find a solution to this issue for 2 days now! My appreciation to you is boundless!!! :o)

  2. Ditto on the big thank you!!!! Have been struggling for a solution all day. In my case it was the endnote so unchecked that as well.

    Very grateful !!!

  3. Thank you!! Solved my problem. Should have seen this site first before re-installing my OS, and all my Windows Office software…!!!

  4. Many thanks for this easy fix. I’ve spent several hours today on the Microsoft support site trying several lengthy solutions to this annoying issue, with no luck. Wish I would have found this site hours ago. I’m so relieved to finally have this problem fixed. Thanks again!

  5. Thank you so much for sharing this fix. I spent over an hour doing everything I could think of, and was just about ready to give up when I found this website. You’re the best!

  6. Thank you, I’ve had IT guys looking at my pc for weeks and could not fix the problem I had. But thanks to you FixKB, I’m back up and running. I will past this information on to other users I know.

  7. Thank you very much. I have been trying to open my blank word for days and it works like a charm now. great to have online help…..Thank-you, Thank-you

  8. I found the answer for this problem,uninstall your update for windows, just leave or install update for word 2013 and excel 2013 only.Then see if it crashes again.

  9. [SOLVED]
    I’ve been tried a tip from Microsoft Community. And it works.
    I only need to disable unnecessary animations on ease access center.
    ============================================
    Doing the steps below that was sent to me from Microsoft. Works fine now.
    1. In “Control panel”, go to the “Ease of Access Center”.
    2. Click on “Make the computer easier to see”.
    3. Scroll down to “Turn off all unnecessary animations (when possible)”.
    4. Check that, and Apply.
    Thank You

  10. Best thingy is that even if you start WinWord with /safe when it comes to Office 365 it wont even let you start it. ABBYY still is Active!

  11. Just installed an EPSON DS-30 Scanner which included ABBYY Fine Reader as part of the software installed.
    Both Word & Excel were crashing. This solution solved the issue! Going to post to the Amazon web site.

    Thanks!

  12. Thank you. I recently bought a scanner that came with Abby and never thought an OCR would be the cause of Office crashing.

  13. Thank you! You solution worked for me with Office 2016 and Windows 10. I just wish I had read this BEFORE I spent 4+ hours going through every other solution and stumbled on the ABBY add-in problem on my own. Finally got Word to start and I just did a search on ‘Word’ + ‘ABBY’ and found this. Whew! What a puzzle. Anyway, thanks again.

  14. Heck yeah!. You people or whoever made this article have my appreciation!. THANK YOU IT WORKED!!!

  15. Thanks a lot! I’ve been struggling with this for 5 days. I’ve uninstalled my AV, then adobe acrobat, then I was going to remove custom skins. Thanks gain!

  16. Ooooooh, LIFESAVER! Thank you kindly, I have tried all kinds of things! Keep up the great work, much appreciated.

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