Word (office 2019) has (only) pdf option available to save in (no docx, doc )

Hi guys - you've been so kind and helpful towards me in the past that I thought I'd post again here in case anyone could help me out again :)

A family member's laptop (Windows 11 , acer aspire laptop if that helps any so preinstalled acer Win 11) just flat out refused to install Windows updates until I used the going into “system”, “settings” and clicking on “reinstall now” under “fix problems using windows update” method.. which from what I understand more or less reinstalls the Windows operating system but you have to reinstall a bunch of programs... Office 2019 was one of the programs I had to reinstall.

Afterwards .. and it's really strange when I launch Word on the laptop it says right there "office 2019" on the splash screen when Word opens up ... we can use Word normally on the laptop .. right up until it's time to save the document you just created at which point in the drop down menu the only option it gives you is to save as a pdf. "docx" or even "doc" isn't even listed as an option on the "save as" drop down menu.

Tried doing the following which didn't help

- start Word in safe mode by holding the control button down at the same time that I launched Word

- going into add/remove programs and selecting "repair office"

- telling office to check for updates (office says no updates available)

- uninstall, reinstall office yet again

- uninstall, reinstall adobe reader just in case

- check in default apps in settings and select word as associated app for doc and docx files

- confirm the default printer is not a pdf printer (default printer is the printer we bought and hooked up to the laptop, word was working fine and cooperating with that printer before and still is .. if you print a docx or doc file created earlier on before this problem word prints just fine to the printer)

- confirm no add ons interfering with word .. we didn't get any start up add ons to begin with but double checked to make sure Word didn't think that there was some startup add on.. looked in the startup folder in Microsoft office to confirm and not seeing any entries in there at all

Not sure if anyone else has encountered this problem? Thanks in advance to anyone who reads this and replies :)

Was Office 2019 properly activated? Without activation Office runs in a reduced capabilities mode and one of the features missing is the ability to save in the native formats.

Make sure that your file associations point to word, specifically .doc and .docx
settings>apps>default apps>choose defaults by file type


Also check your word options. I'm on Ofc2021 but Ofc2019 should be similar

hsehestedt said:

Was Office 2019 properly activated? Without activation Office runs in a reduced capabilities mode and one of the features missing is the ability to save in the native formats.

Click to expand...

Hi there thanks so much for replying :) ... well to be honest I'm wondering if the problem may be the product key I bought from .. well they're partnered with gamestop (I think they go by the name "retail king") and I bought the 2019 office product key from them for $25 .. which I know isn't the "real" price for microsoft office :) ... from what I've been told apparently the seller buys a bunch of licenses at a volume discount ... so this is actually super helpful information! It looks like I got lucky with my microsoft office 2021 key (installed on a different PC) that I also bought the same way through a gamestop affiliated organization (store itself is called "gamestop deals") but.. yep I do find myself wondering if I paid the "full microsoft price" if it would do away with any possible hiccups far as Microsoft thinking it's not fully activated.

glasskuter said:

Make sure that your file associations point to word, specifically .doc and .docx
settings>apps>default apps>choose defaults by file type
View attachment 152253

Also check your word options. I'm on Ofc2021 but Ofc2019 should be similar
View attachment 152252

Click to expand...

Thanks for that :) .. and my apologies I should have made that clear in my initial forum post! I did make sure the default app options were set to "open docx and doc documents with Word" in apps-default apps and I did check the options in word itself to make sure word was saving the files in docx format (both screens look familiar I checked them :) .. but again apologies I should have made that clear in my original post)

Regarding license, I am assuming you are signing in with the MS account you used to install Ofc2019, correct?
Go to settings>accounts>Products you've purchased. Is Ofc2019 listed there?

Then open a new word document. Select file>account>about Word. Is a big long number a signed under "license id"? (This also tells you the version of Office.))This number is not the same license key you were given when Ofc2019 was purchased. It's a MS id associated with that license key.

If all that appears kosher, go to MS online and sign in. Microsoft account | Sign In or Create Your Account Today – Microsoft
In left column select subscriptions. Select products you've purchased.
Ofc2019 should be there. This proves that MS accepted the license key as valid.

I would contact Office support. Though you start with chat, it's not very difficult to eventually get to a live human

Tell them what you have already done. They may have you do some of it again.
They are very good and will probably ask for remote access into the machine, all the while chatting with you...

glasskuter said:

Regarding license, I am assuming you are signing in with the MS account you used to install Ofc2019, correct?
Go to settings>accounts>Products you've purchased. Is Ofc2019 listed there?

Then open a new word document. Select file>account>about Word. Is a big long number a signed under "license id"? (This also tells you the version of Office.))This number is not the same license key you were given when Ofc2019 was purchased. It's a MS id associated with that license key.

If all that appears kosher, go to MS online and sign in. Microsoft account | Sign In or Create Your Account Today – Microsoft
In left column select subscriptions. Select products you've purchased.
Ofc2019 should be there. This proves that MS accepted the license key as valid.

I would contact Office support. Though you start with chat, it's not very difficult to eventually get to a live human

Contact Us - Microsoft Support

Contact Microsoft Support. Find solutions to common problems, or get help from a support agent.

support.microsoft.com

Tell them what you have already done. They may have you do some of it again.
They are very good and will probably ask for remote access into the machine, all the while chatting with you...

Click to expand...

Again thank you so much for all your time and attention I really really appreciate it :) ..

It's the strangest thing.. when I bought my gamestop-affiliated $30 (think it was $30) office 2021 product key sure enough it showed up under subscriptions in my microsoft account (again this is on an entirely different PC where word is cooperating without the "you can only save in pdf" silliness)

But the problem is the office 2019 does not show up under any subscriptions in the microsoft account associated (the "problem PC" laptop, different than the PC with the office 2021 I mentioned above) .. rather the gamestop deals website gives you a link to click on from the gamestop deals website itself, you use it to sign into your microsoft account and .. well TECHNICALLY 2019 office works after that it's just having this strange ... hiccup :) ...

...but given it's not officially showing in subscriptions in the microsoft account associated with it I can't help but wonder if I contact microsoft support they'll be like " Um, did you buy this from an official seller of microsoft products ? You bought it from.. "retail king?"... associated with "gamestop?".. this isn't the way you're supposed to buy it so we're not helping you"... I could be totally wrong of course please correct me if I am it goes without saying you'd know a lot more about this than an ignorant soul like me I'm serious , all you elevenforum people are amazing and know way more than I ever will :) ...

I will say that for right now strangely enough the problem appears to have solved itself I have no idea why (and hopefully the problem will stay solved :) ) , word is now letting the family member's PC with office 2019 save in docx file format again .. tested it by creating a new blank word document and telling word to try saving it and word dutifully offered to save it in docx format as opposed to the "nope, forget you pdf or nothing" problem it was giving before ... but I do want to answer the questions you gave me in case you can shed any more light on what's going on or why word did this to begin with.

when I went into "account" after opening a new word file on the problem PC (it's a new word document but I haven't even typed anything into and saved I don't know if that makes a difference? didn't know if I was supposed to do that or not )... it does show a screen that says "product information office ....product activated microsoft office professional plus 2019" and it has the little picture icons for all the office stuff you'd expect (word, excel , powerpoint, and so forth) ... there is an "about word" section that sadly does not mention a license ID but it says "version 2510 build 19328.20178 click to run"

In your option given the apparent "sketchiness" of the whole thing (not showing as an official office 2019 subscription in the microsoft account associated with the problem PC) do you think microsoft tech support would bother to help in a situation like that if the problem arises again?

If I were you I wouldn't worry about it as long as Office 2019 is working OK again.

I have two copies of Office 2019 Pro Plus and two copies of Office 2021 Pro Plus. Only one of the copies of Office 2021 Pro Plus shows up under subscriptions when I log into my Microsoft account. All four installations of Office are working OK for me. Note all four of these computers are also using local accounts. When I log into each copy of Word I can log into my Microsoft account if I want but that is not required.

Glad it started working. I have no idea why, unless maybe an update. I wouldn't worry about it as long as it's working.. I wouldn't worry about whether MS would help either considering the cost.

Both my cheap Office 2021 licenses came from StackSocial and have worked for 3 years now, even when reinstalling Office after a clean install.
I paid more than what you did but I don't think that matters if the seller is legit. We have no way of knowing when purchased using these methods. It's always a crap shoot because many licenses being sold activate office and then later it deactivates with a message complaining about the license key..
I figure for what I've paid, I have more than gotten my money's worth. If you ever have to clean install office in the future, all you can hope for is the license key given when purchased will still work.

MisterEd said:

If I were you I wouldn't worry about it as long as Office 2019 is working OK again.

I have two copies of Office 2019 Pro Plus and two copies of Office 2021 Pro Plus. Only one of the copies of Office 2021 Pro Plus shows up under subscriptions when I log into my Microsoft account. All four installations of Office are working OK for me. Note all four of these computers are also using local accounts. When I log into each copy of Word I can log into my Microsoft account if I want but that is not required.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that this is good info to know that only one of the four copies of Office you bought show up under your subscriptions in the Microsoft account yet they all work okay :) ... the strange thing is in my case it pretty much demanded when I was redeeming the product key through gamespot's deals website that I log into a microsoft account I had no idea a local account would even have worked but that's just me being dumb ...

glasskuter said:

Glad it started working. I have no idea why, unless maybe an update. I wouldn't worry about it as long as it's working.. I wouldn't worry about whether MS would help either considering the cost.

Both my cheap Office 2021 licenses came from StackSocial and have worked for 3 years now, even when reinstalling Office after a clean install.
I paid more than what you did but I don't think that matters if the seller is legit. We have no way of knowing when purchased using these methods. It's always a crap shoot because many licenses being sold activate office and then later it deactivates with a message complaining about the license key..
I figure for what I've paid, I have more than gotten my money's worth. If you ever have to clean install office in the future, all you can hope for is the license key given when purchased will still work.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that :) ... yep I kind of figured it was a "roll the dice" sort of situation given it's from a, shall we say "not ' official you don't have to pay $150 or whatever the heck they want for a lifetime office license key' " :) .. but this is incredibly reassuring that even 3 years later and even after a clean install the cheap office 2021 license still works :) ...

You could try to install Office and then click 'Repair'.

pewa said:

You could try to install Office and then click 'Repair'.

Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the time to reply I appreciate it :) ... it's letting me save again as an actual docx file and not a pdf file again so hopefully it continues to behave itself :) .. the funny thing is earlier on I did try the repair option which sadly did not work.. uninstalled and reinstalled office completely didn't work.. then after the laptop was restarted yet again Word was like "Oh okay I guess I'll let you save in docx format now " :) ...

One new bit of info no idea if this made a difference or not... I restored from a previous macrium backup I made of Windows .. I made that backup right after fixing another problem with Win 11 refusing to install updates (see my wall of text first post up there for more info :) ) so I could restore the PC to that point if necessary if the update problem reared it's head again... even after restoring from the macrium backup Word still insisted on saving files in pdf format.. gave up, turned PC off and the following day Word decided to be nice to us again :) ...

If I had to guess... and I'm going on the assumption everyone on this forum knows a lot more about solving computer problems than me because that's been the case every time in the past given all your helpful replies (thanks again for that btw :) ) so that is almost certainly the case here as well :) .. but if my ignorant self had to guess I'd say hsehestedt hit it on the head in the earlier post .. given that I got office 2019 at a significant discount through the gamespot deals website ($25 price) and given that Office 2019 flat out refuses to show up in the "subscriptions" part of the Microsoft account like one would expect I'm thinking this is the drawback for the cheap price as opposed to the "one time purchase Office 2024 for $149.99" price from the official microsoft store


But hopefully Word continues to be nice to us :) ...

AndreIsComputn said:

Thanks for taking the time to reply I appreciate it :) ... it's letting me save again as an actual docx file and not a pdf file again so hopefully it continues to behave itself :) .. the funny thing is earlier on I did try the repair option which sadly did not work.. uninstalled and reinstalled office completely didn't work.. then after the laptop was restarted yet again Word was like "Oh okay I guess I'll let you save in docx format now " :) ...

One new bit of info no idea if this made a difference or not... I restored from a previous macrium backup I made of Windows .. I made that backup right after fixing another problem with Win 11 refusing to install updates (see my wall of text first post up there for more info :) ) so I could restore the PC to that point if necessary if the update problem reared it's head again... even after restoring from the macrium backup Word still insisted on saving files in pdf format.. gave up, turned PC off and the following day Word decided to be nice to us again :) ...

If I had to guess... and I'm going on the assumption everyone on this forum knows a lot more about solving computer problems than me because that's been the case every time in the past given all your helpful replies (thanks again for that btw :) ) so that is almost certainly the case here as well :) .. but if my ignorant self had to guess I'd say hsehestedt hit it on the head in the earlier post .. given that I got office 2019 at a significant discount through the gamespot deals website ($25 price) and given that Office 2019 flat out refuses to show up in the "subscriptions" part of the Microsoft account like one would expect I'm thinking this is the drawback for the cheap price as opposed to the "one time purchase Office 2024 for $149.99" price from the official microsoft store

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-2024/cfq7ttc0pqvj

But hopefully Word continues to be nice to us :) ...

Click to expand...

Hi there
Easiest way to check Office activation status (almost any version as far back as Office 2010) !!)

Open ANY office app and choose from the menu Account.


Then you should see this -- at the top right hand side it should say (assuming your version is in English) -- Product Activated" if activated or it will request activation.




Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
Easiest way to check Office activation status (almost any version as far back as Office 2010) !!)

Open ANY office app and choose from the menu Account.


Then you should see this -- at the top right hand side it should say (assuming your version is in English) -- Product Activated" if activated or it will request activation.

View attachment 152941


Cheers
jimbo

Click to expand...

Thanks for that :)... that's the crazy thing I did check it the same way you described even before my first post and it said "product activated", it still does too ... so I'm guessing it was just hiccuping due to me grabbing the cheaper version of Office from gamespot deals ...