No Ribbon on New Documents

When Peter creates a new document with Word 2016, the document sometimes opens with no Quick Access Toolbar or ribbon visible. All he sees are the window edges, the document name, and the ruler. This makes working on the document almost impossible. If Peter closes the file and re-opens it, it opens normally and he can continue. This is really frustrating and a waste of time, so Peter wonders if anyone has seen this and knows how to fix it.

There are a few possibilities that could be causing this. First, you might have a macro that is running when you create your document, and the macro is causing the modification. You can check if this is the case by looking at any macros defined in your system and seeing if one of them is triggered when a new document is created. (The macro may actually be stored as part of the new-document template; make sure you check there, as well.)

Another possibility could be that there is some setting in the template that is causing the hiding of the ribbon and QAT. This is a fairly easy possibility to check out—just create your new document using a different template. If the modification only occurs with a particular template, then you know the problem is with that template.

If you are using the Normal template to create your new document, then you'll need to search for Normal.dotx (or Normal.dotm) outside of Word, in Windows, and rename the template(s) to something else. Restart Word, create a new document, and see if the problem occurs again. (It should be noted that if, when you first start Word, you don't see the problem, then chances are good that it isn't being caused by the Normal template in the first place. Why? Because the blank document you see when you first start Word is based on the Normal template. If you can see the ribbon and QAT when you first start Word, then the problem probably isn't in the Normal template.)

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11979) applies to Microsoft Word 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365.