Article ID: 2439218 - Last Review: March 14, 2011 - Revision: 5.0

Testing your user account to troubleshoot Office for Mac applications

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SUMMARY

Sometimes, a user's specific information may be corrupted, therefore, you are not able to install, start, or use Microsoft Office for Mac applications such as Word for Mac, Excel for Mac, Entourage for Mac. To determine if this is the case, you can log on as a new user or create a new user account, and then test an application. If the problem no longer occurs on a new user account, contact Apple Support to troubleshoot your existing account. If you do not wish to keep your existing account, you can rename your test account to whatever you would like and use Office applications on it.

This article describes how to create a new user account to determine if your existing user account got corrupted.

Prerequisites check

The following requirements must be met before you follow any of the methods in this article.

You must quit all applications.
If this is your personal computer, you are likely already logged on with an administrator account. If this is a computer that is part of a network at work, you might have to ask the system administrator for help.

Additional information about Mac user accounts can be found on Apple web site (http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=search&src=support_site.home&locale=en_US&q=new%20user) .

Note that you will not need to reinstall office as applications are available system wide.

MORE INFORMATION

To create a new user account, follow these steps:

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1. Click the Apple icon then click System Preferences.	Collapse this imageExpand this image
2. Click Accounts .	Collapse this imageExpand this image
3. Click the Plus sign [ + ] in the lower left corner to open the new account window. Note If you are not the Administrator of the computer, to be able to add an account, click Click the lock to make changes. Login using your Administrator user name and password and then press OK .	Collapse this imageExpand this image
4. Enter the word Test for the user name and leave the password box blank. Click the Create Account button. When you receive a warning, click OK .	Collapse this imageExpand this image
5. Click to checkmark Allow User to Administer this computer (If you do not have this check mark, proceed to next step).	Collapse this imageExpand this image
6. Click the Apple icon then click Logout out <Account name> of your original account.	Collapse this imageExpand this image
7. Login with your Test account and test Office applications or try installing/reinstalling Office.