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Forum Discussion
Dropbox Microsoft Office Online not working: Clicking "Open in Word for Web" results in preview
I'm having trouble getting Microsoft Office Online to load properly.
When I open a *.docx document as the preview and choose "Open with Word for Web" my browser opens a new tab and the loads the same *.docx file in the preview mode. If I go to the same dropdown and click "Open with Word for Web", it opens yet another tab that also ends up being the same preview folder.
The Word for Web loads properly if I use the DropBox browser interface to create a new document. However when I close it, I am back to the original situation where if I try to open it with Word for Web it only loads a new tab in the preview view.
Can somebody help me get this working again? This situation started suddenly and is new to me.
Thanks for looking into this issue , Jay ! Here are some screenshots:
If I create a new document using the browser interface, I have the option to create in Microsoft Word and "Word for the Web" opens correctly.
I save the file as "OpenMe.docx" , go back to the directory, and then try to use "Word for the Web" to open it.
Instead of opening it in Word for the Web, it opens in the DropBox preview app. I then go to the "Open in" dropdown menu and choose "Word for the Web" to open it in Word again.
It opens a new tab (note there is one more tab now) that still shows the document in preview mode. No matter how many times I do it, it's still opens the file in a new tab in "preview (DropBox)".
I recreated this issue in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, all on MacOS.
EDIT: This issue stopped happening when I tried it again. I am on a different machine, so I will go back to the previous one and see if it's fixed now. In the meantime, the screenshots are representative of what I was seeing in the original post. Has a fix been pushed out in the meantime?- DBX_Pedro
Community Manager
Hi byang92 ,
Thanks for reaching out.
This was detected on our side and according to the engineers this issue has been resolved.
According to the latest post this appears to be working for you once again.
Can you please confirm ?
If necessary please advise us and we can investigate further.
Hi Jay,
I am having the same problem with one of my clients. Windows 10 any browser and any computer the result is the same. Tried changing the settings in the Drobox account for default preview and word online. All the attempts to open in word online end up in preview mode.
I'm having the same issues with Excel files. It was working fine the day before but have been unable to open in Excel for Web since yesterday. If I create a new file, it'll open up Excel for Web, but after saving and reopening, it will only load the Dropbox preview version where I cannot edit anything. I've tried clearing browser cache, history, cookies, everything. I've switched to Incognito mode and have used different browsers. None of that fixed this issue.
I'm on Mac OS using Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. Here's what the page looks like when I select Open In > Excel for Web.
Hello, have a user with the same issue as described. Attempting to "Open in Word for Web" does not work either from within the Dropbox preview, or from the web file browser. Same for Excel. It just re-opens in the Dropbox preview.
We tried:
• logging out and deleting all Dropbox Cookies
• in Settings -> Apps, disconnected the Microsoft Office Online integration
• In Settings -> Apps, set all apps to "View on Dropbox.com", reloaded the settings page, then set them back to "Open in [App] for web".
No change.
The problem is not affecting me, I'm in a team account with the user. I tried the same file they were having trouble with. Word for Web was working for them on Friday.
We're both using Chrome.
Hannah CDropbox Product Manager
Hi byang92 & Smallishman,
I'm sorry to hear this! Are you or your clients still seeing this issue? I believe this issue has been resolved but want to make sure. Please let us know if you continue to see an issue.
Hi Hannah,
I am still getting this error today, in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox on macOS 14.7.
I'm having the same issues with Excel files. It was working fine the day before but have been unable to open in Excel for Web since yesterday. If I create a new file, it'll open up Excel for Web, but after saving and reopening, it will only load the Dropbox preview version where I cannot edit anything. I've tried clearing browser cache, history, cookies, everything. I've switched to Incognito mode and have used different browsers. None of that fixed this issue.
I'm on Mac OS using Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.
