How to fix “an antivirus program is preventing you from opening an Office document” error?

Be it Norton, McAfee or any other security software, the basic feature of it is to provide protection against viruses, ensuring safe browsing as well as safe online transactions. You can also be sure of the privacy of your confidential data that is transferred over web. The antivirus also blocks downloading any attachment from your email, if it founds it infected. It may also stop any particular file or document to open.

Sometimes while accessing your Office documents, you may receive a message that "an antivirus program is preventing you from opening an Office document. There could be different reasons for this error to occur. These possible reasons are:

• The file you are attempting to open is infected with a virus that the installed antivirus is not able to remove
• The file you are attempting to open has been corrputed
• The antivirus you have installed and the Office version you are using are not compatible

In the incompatibility and virus infected file case, update the antivirus to its latest version available. For this, open your antivirus and check for updates. Once the update finishes, you would be able to open the Office document. However, in case if your file has been corrupted, it cannot be handled by Microsoft Office as well as the security software installed on your device. In order to fix this issue, you have to recover the file. Before you do so, just remember that not all files can be recovered.

1. Open the damaged or corrupted document in the draft mode without updating the links
2. Now, configure MS Wod by following these steps:

• Open Word and click Draft in the Documents Views group available under View tab
• In Word, Click the File Menu followed by Options and then Advanced
• In the Show Document Content segment, click to choose the Use Draft font in Draft and Outline views and Show Picture placeholders
• Now clear the Update automatic links at Open under the General section
• Click Ok and close MS Word

1. Once the configuration completes, open the corrupted document by following these steps:

• Start Word and click Open under the File menu
• Click the corrupted document and choose Open
• Now, insert the document as a file in a new document
• Copy the content to the new file and paste it there
• Save the file
• It’s good to go

If you are still unable to resolve the issue, contact Office.com/setup team and get the issue fixed by a certified technician.

Author’s Bio-James Watson, the author of this article is expert in providing the solutions for the most basic to the complex security issues, antivirus errors, printer errors, browser problems and other allied issues.