Office 2013 known issues

Welcome to Microsoft Office.

Please refer to the provided End-User License Agreement for license information.

The following list contains important facts about Office, including for Setup and the individual Office programs. To see other related 2013 known issue articles, click Office Web Apps known issues or Office 365 known issues.

What products or areas have issues?

Office (release)

Office (preview)

Setup: volume license and no disc (release)

Setup: volume license and no disc (preview)

Input Method Editor (IME) (preview)

Telemetry Dashboard (preview)

Access (preview)

Excel (release)

Excel (preview)

OneNote (release)

OneNote (preview)

Outlook (release)

Outlook (preview)

PowerPoint (preview)

Visio (preview)

Word (release)

Word (preview)

Office (release)

File type association problems with installing different versions of Office side-by-side

When you install Office 2013 using Office Click-to-Run, Setup places it side-by-side with existing installed Office versions. This can cause the file association to be broken for the following:

• Uninstalling earlier versions of Office
• Uninstalling the Office 2013
• Default programs can’t be set in Default Programs in Control Panel if the Office 2010 programs aren’t listed.

Workaround    When uninstalling an Office version while leaving another version installed on the computer, repair the version of Office remaining to make sure that file type associations will work correctly.

Effects of disabling hardware acceleration

With hardware acceleration disabled, AirSpace device renders using software rendering (WARP) that relies mainly on the CPU and uses limited or no graphics card resources. You can cause a lower frame rate and increase in the working set. Performance becomes more dependent on CPU characteristics, like memory, number of cores, and on how many apps are open, and can strain the CPU resources.

On Windows 7, Office animations are disabled. On Windows 8, animations are enabled because of D2D WARP improvements found in Windows 8.

Workaround    No workaround currently available.

Can’t install Project or Visio from Home Use Program

When you install Microsoft Office Professional Plus from the Home Use Program (HUP), Visio 2013 and Project 2013 won’t install and you might get the following error message.

Something went wrong

Sorry, we ran into a problem.

Workaround    Project and Visio can’t be installed at the same time. To work around this problem, follow these steps:

1. Run Online Repair for the product that was successfully installed, either Project or Visio.
2. Wait for the installation part of Online Repair to finish.
3. Install the product with which you are experiencing the problem, either Project or Visio.

For more information, please see the Knowledge Base article You cannot install Visio 2013 or Project 2013 from HUP.

Blurriness or distortion on newer NVIDIA graphics cards

If you turn on the Manage 3D Setting on AntiAliasing – FXAA option for newer NVIDIA cards, you’ll see distortion or blurriness. This option is off by default because the option states “enabling this setting global may affect all programs rendered on the GPU, including video players and the Windows desktop.”

Workaround    NVIDIA has released a newer driver that you can download from the NVIDIA website.

Or since the above setting is global, you can click the Program Settings tab of the Manage 3D Settings and customize your Office programs to turn the global setting for Antialiasing – FXAA to off. By default, the Use Global Setting is the setting and will take whatever is set globally.

Turning off hardware acceleration also fixes the issue but we don’t recommend doing this.

Blurriness or distortion on newer ATI cards

If you turn on the Morphological filtering option on the Gaming tab, you’ll see distortion or blurriness. This option is off by default.

Workaround AMD will be releasing a driver that will fix this issue. Or you can turn this option off. Or create an Application profile with this option turned off in the Application profiles group box at the top by pressing Save and pointing to the Office program executable (with the Morphological filtering option off).

Turning off hardware acceleration also fixes the issue but we don’t recommend doing this.

Get error “Something went wrong – We couldn’t start your program” when start an Office 2013 program

If you get the following error when you try to start an Office 2013 program, you’re running Windows 8, installed Visual Studio 2012, and using the Windows 8 Simulator.

Something went wrong – We couldn’t start your program. Please try starting it again.

Workaround    The Windows 8 Simulator and Office 2013 programs can’t be run at the same time. You might need to restart the computer and only run them one at a time.

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Office (preview)

Can’t open Word, Excel and PowerPoint files from SharePoint Workspace 2010

If you run SharePoint Workspace 2010 with peer-type workspaces and also have Word 2013, Excel 2013, and PowerPoint 2013 installed, you won’t be able to open the files.

Workaround    Download and install Description of the SharePoint Workspace 2010 Update: August 2, 2012.

Saving Word, Excel and PowerPoint files not syncing to SharePoint Workspaces 2010

When you run SharePoint Workspace 2010 and also have Word 2013, Excel 2013, and PowerPoint 2013 installed, Word 2013, Excel 2013, and PowerPoint 2013 can’t sync with SharePoint Workspace 2010.

Workaround    Download and install Description of the SharePoint Workspace 2010 Update: August 2, 2012.

SkyDrive Documents folder appears with ^ in the name

When using Microsoft SkyDrive, you might see your SkyDrive Documents folder appears as ^.Documents in File Open or File Save As. This is only a visual issue, and you can still save or open documents.

Workaround    No workaround is needed, because this only impacts the display of the location. In some circumstances, the ^.Documents entry might be duplicated. To remove this duplicate entry, right click and select Remove from list.

Using Unicode characters in file names created “junk” files

You might see "junk" files created in your SkyDrive folder if the file name contains Unicode characters. These "junk" files can’t be opened.

Workaround    No workaround is available at this time.

Upsell to SkyDrive for Windows appears in English

When you save a file to SkyDrive, you see an upsell for SkyDrive for Windows in English only if you don’t already have SkyDrive installed on your computer.

Workaround    No workaround is available at this time.

Can’t insert certain symbols with the keyboard in some languages

For some languages it isn’t possible to enter certain symbols, like the Euro symbol, with the keyboard.

Workaround    Click Insert >Symbol and then select the symbol you want to insert.

Blank UI or video driver crash

You might see blank UI or the UI disappears when hover in Office programs. Or your video driver might crash or hang.

Workaround    Try to update your video card driver and/or click File > Options > Advanced > Display, and then check the Disable Video Hardware acceleration box.

If you don’t see this box, you can set the regkey DisableHardwareAcceleration = 1 in Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Graphics

Unable to open Office files in Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8

When you click Open when downloading Office files in Windows Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8, the download might not work correctly. You might see an error message or the file won’t have the expected data.

Workaround    Click Save instead of Open when you are trying to open Office files in Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8.

Person card turns blank after clicking Save in inline edit mode

After you make any changes or click Save, instead of returning to read mode with all data, the card is empty, with only Contact and Note tabs showing.

Workaround    No workaround is available. No data is being lost. If you want to see your changes, reopen the card.

Adding a friend to Facebook through Office doesn’t work

If you try to add a person to Facebook from the person card, you are sent to a page on Facebook that no longer exists.

Workaround    Add the friend to Facebook by going to the Facebook website.

Scroll wheel or arrow keys don’t scroll in Notes tab of Person Card

If you have a long note for a contact and try to see more content by using a mouse's scroll wheel or the up or down arrow keys, the note continues to show the same section of content. This only happens in read mode. If you are using inline edit, the scroll wheel and arrow keys work.

Workaround    To read the whole message, click or drag using the scroll bar.

"Download" feature on SkyDrive website doesn't work correctly in Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview

If you use Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview browser and click the Download button on Microsoft SkyDrive to download copies of your SkyDrive files, you can’t open these documents correctly in Office programs. Instead of the document's contents being shown by the Office program, the contents are blank and might contain the message "JavaScript required to sign in." There is no actual data corruption or data loss in the file stored on SkyDrive; you just won’t be able to view it.

Workaround    After you click the Download button, a dialog box opens asking if you want to open or save the file download. Click Save, which puts the file in the Downloads folder. Once the file is completely downloaded, it can be opened successfully in the Office program by clicking Open in the Internet Explorer message bar or by double-clicking the file in the Downloads folder.

Opening from or saving to your MySite from your desktop apps may not work

Even though you see the MySite Documents library as a folder you can save to on your desktop computer, you may not be able to save to your MySite because your MySite has not yet been instantiated. If your MySite is not instantiated and you try to save a document from one of your desktop apps to the MySite Documents library, the desktop app will instead either save the document to a local folder or to the last location you saved a file to.

Workaround    Navigate to your MySite home page, which usually is at https://customer-my.sharepoint.com/default.aspx. As soon as you are able to access the SkyDrive Pro page, you will be able to use MySite as the default save location from desktop apps.

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Setup: volume license and no disc (release)

MSI-based    is what we call Setup for people installing with a volume license.

Click-to-Run    is what we call Setup for people installing with no disc or other media. Office is usually downloaded.

Can’t run Office Click-to-Run on Windows Vista or Windows XP

When you use Click-to-Run on a computer running either Windows Vista or Windows XP, you get the following error.

This is not a valid Win32 application

Workaround    Office 2013 requires at least Windows 7.

Need Release Preview of Windows 8 to run Office

If you are running Windows 8 Consumer Preview and try to install Office, you might see the following message:

We’re sorry, but we can’t install Office on a preview version of Windows 8.

Workaround    Install the Release Preview version of Windows 8.

My installation of Office is really slow

What is likely happening is that your anti-virus software is detecting the streaming of Office 2013 and is analyzing every file. While it is great that your anti-virus software is so vigilant, it is also causing you to have a much slower install process. We have seen slower than average installs if you use:

• ZoneAlarm
• Norton
• McAfee
• Vipre
• Kaspersky
• AVG
• Avast

If your anti-virus software isn’t on this list, it might still be slowing down your install process.

Workaround    This should only be an issue during installation. After you're installed we haven't found any known performance issues from anti-virus software. You can either wait for it to finish installing or disable your anti-virus software until you're done installing.

 Caution    Turn off your anti-virus software at your own risk and please turn it back on it after Office 2013 has been installed.

Microsoft is working with many anti-virus software manufacturers to ensure that this experience improves.

Error messages you might see

• Sorry something went wrong, sorry we ran into a problem, try going online for additional help.
• We're sorry, we can't continue because we weren't able to download a required file.
• Something went wrong. We ran into a problem, please try installing Office again.
• Background installation ran into a problem: Please make sure you're still connected to the internet, or try connected to a different network.

Workaround    Currently no workaround is available for these error messages.

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Setup: volume license and no disc (preview)

MSI-based    is what we call Setup for people installing with a volume license.

Click-to-Run    is what we call Setup for people installing with no disc or other media. Office is usually downloaded.

Can’t run Office Click-to-Run on Windows Vista or Windows XP

When you use Click-to-Run on a computer running either Windows Vista or Windows XP, you get the following error.

This is not a valid Win32 application

Workaround    Office Customer Preview requires at least Windows 7. For more information, please see System requirements for Office Preview.

Click-to-Run installations hang at 10% when system service doesn’t have permissions to installation source

In an enterprise scenario where the administrator has configured the installation source to be a protected network share instead of the Internet, the computer’s system account might not have access. When the installation’s source is not available because of permissions, the installation fails and appears to hang with the progress stuck at 10%.

Workaround    Do one of the following:

• Install from Internet instead of protected network share.
• Install from network share where computer’s system accounts have access.
• Prepare a deployment script that first copies the installation source from the protected network share to the local computer and then installs using the local source.

Need Release Preview of Windows 8 to run Office

If you are running Windows 8 Consumer Preview and try to install Office Preview, you might see the following message:

We’re sorry, but we can’t install Office on a preview version of Windows 8.

Workaround    Install the Release Preview version of Windows 8.

Activation Wizard in old look and feel

In the Japanese version of Office Preview, you might see the Activation Wizard dialog box in the earlier Office look and feel.

Workaround    The Activation Wizard still works. It just isn’t in the new look and feel.

Program might not be installed when rename Click-to-Run .exe file

If you rename the Click-to-Run .exe file and then try to install an Office program using Click-to-Run, or if you wait a long time to run the .exe file, you are asked to sign in to activate the product. But after signing in, you might see a message telling you the product isn’t installed.

Workaround    Close the dialog box using the X in the upper-right corner and wait for Office to finish streaming/downloading. After it completes, you can open an Office program and sign in to activate without seeing the message.

Enter your product key and activate it for Volume editions of Office

All MSI-installed products in the Preview are volume activated. Setup won’t ask you for a product key. Instead, it automatically installs a Generic Volume License Key (GVLK, also known as a KMS client key). With this key installed, Office automatically tries to find a KMS server on the network and activate against it. If you haven’t set up and activated a KMS host, Office programs begin to show Product Activation Failed messages 25 days after installation. The volume products won’t go into Reduced Functionality Mode, but they will show messages.

Workaround    If you don’t intend to set up a KMS server, you should change your product key from the automatically-installed GVLK to the unique MAK key provided to you by doing one of the following.

• Click File > Manage > Change Product Key.
• Wait 25 days after installation. After 25 days, the Activation Wizard appears. From this wizard, you can click Change Product Key.

My anti-virus software has blocked my installation of Office Preview

In some cases when you try to download and install the Office, your anti-virus software might block, quarantine, or delete important parts of Office Preview because it uses new installation technology. At this point we know of that Panda, BitDefender, and Avira causes problems with the download and installation. Avast flags a portion of the install and warns of extreme caution.

Just because your anti-virus software isn't listed, doesn't mean you won't have a similar experience.

Workaround    Microsoft is working diligently with anti-virus software manufacturers to fix these issues. Until then please either try our Office Preview on a computer with different anti-virus software and help report these issues to your anti-virus vendor.

My installation of the Office Preview is really slow

What is likely happening is that your anti-virus software is detecting the streaming of Office Preview and is analyzing every file. While it is great that your anti-virus software is so vigilant, it is also causing you to have a much slower install process. We have seen slower than average installs if you use:

• ZoneAlarm
• Norton
• McAfee
• Vipre
• Kaspersky
• AVG
• Avast

If your anti-virus software isn’t on this list, it might still be slowing down your install process.

Workaround    This should only be an issue during installation. After you're installed we haven't found any known performance issues from anti-virus software. You can either wait for it to finish installing or disable your anti-virus software until you're done installing.

 Caution    Turn off your anti-virus software at your own risk and please turn it back on it after Office Preview has been installed.

Microsoft is working with many anti-virus software manufacturers to ensure that this experience improves.

Office 2010 won’t start after install Office and shows a license message

After installing Office Preview, Office 2010 won’t start and shows the following message:

Microsoft Office cannot verify the license for this product. You should repair the Office program by using Control Panel.

You see this message when Office was installed after an Office 2010 product and the Office 2010 product was activated by telephone.

Workaround    Activate the Office 2010 product online by doing the following:

1. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14.

If you have the 64-bit version of Office, the path is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14

2. Make sure you are connected to the Internet and run the following command to activate the product online:

cscript ospp.vbs /act

Office intro movie doesn’t have closed captions

During installation a short animated movie about signing into Office plays.

Workaround    No workaround is available. There is no way to access closed captions for the movie.

Visual Studio and Lync 2013 Incompatibility

There are compatibility issues between Lync 2013 and Visual Studio 2012 RC when installing Office via MSI.

Workaround   

Install Office 365 Home Premium or Office 365 ProPlus from the Office Preview Site.

Or if you’re installing the MSI version of Office, do one of the following:

• Install the latest Visual Studio 2012 RC Update patch
• Don’t install Lync as part of the Office Preview installation:

1. Run installer – setup will start and display the License Terms dialog box.
2. Read the terms, click I accept the terms of this agreement, and then click Continue.
3. On the Choose the installation you want dialog, click Customize.
4. The Installation options dialog will appear.
5. On Installation Options tab, click the Microsoft Lync drop down arrow.
6. Select Not Available.
7. Click Install Now.

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Input Method Editor (IME) (preview)

Can’t use SharePoint or Outlook dictionary after repairing Office installed using Click-to-Run

If you upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 after you set up Office 2010 using MSI setup (disc) and Office using Click-to-Run, the repair won’t correctly repair the SharePoint dictionary and Outlook dictionary of IME for Japanese.

Workaround    Reinstall Office using Click-to-Run on Windows 8.

SharePoint dictionary add-in and Outlook dictionary add-in doesn't work on Windows 8 Home Edition

The Japanese Office IME supports SharePoint dictionary and Outlook dictionary add-ins, and the data in a SharePoint list and Outlook address book can be looked up as external dictionary from IME. But the add-ins aren’t supported on Windows 8 Home Edition because this version lacks the correct encryption feature.

Workaround    Please purchase a different version of Windows 8 that supports encryption.

Can't use the latest Office IME on Windows

We deprecated Office IME from Office. Office IME 2010 is the latest Office version, and Windows ships a system IME.

Workaround    If you use Windows 7, download the Office IME 2010 from either Download Center or via Microsoft Update. If you use Windows 8, use the system IME shipped with Windows 8.

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Telemetry Dashboard (preview)

Sometimes Excel might crash

When you click a hyperlink or button in the Telemetry Log/Telemetry Dashboard on non-English environment, Excel might crash.

Workaround    Before you open a saved Telemetry Log/Telemetry Dashboard, open the Telemetry Dashboard from the Start menu and click Info Bar in the Getting Start worksheet in the Telemetry Dashboard to enable the add-in.

Can't connect to a Technical Preview Telemetry Database from Preview Telemetry Dashboard

If you created the Telemetry Database using 15 Technical Preview, you won’t be able to connect to it using a Preview Telemetry Dashboard and will get an error message saying that you need to upgrade the database.

Workaround    Upgrade the Telemetry Processor to the Preview version. The upgrade will also upgrade the Telemetry database.

Office telemetry tools can’t switch display languages if the language pack is installed with Office 365 ProPlus Preview

When you install the Office Single Language Pack on Office 365 ProPlus Preview, the Office Telemetry Log and Telemetry Dashboard tools (Start > Microsoft Office 2013 > Office 2013 Tools) cannot switch display languages even if you changed the language settings in Office Language Preference (Start > Microsoft Office 2013 > Office 2013 Tools). In this case, the ribbon menu will switch to your chosen language, but the contents of the tools will keep the language of Office 365 ProPlus Preview.

This issue occurs only for the combination of a language pack and Office 365 ProPlus Preview installation and doesn’t occur for Office Professional Preview.

Workaround No work around is available.

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Access (preview)

Data macro can’t tell which field to use when two fields have same name

When you save a data macro referring to a query that has two fields with the same name (usually from different tables), we can’t tell which field is correct for the data macro.

Workaround    Change the name of one of the fields in your query.

SQL native drivers error message when create a report

When you click the Create Reports, you might get an error message that the latest SQL Native Client Drivers aren’t installed. The application requires the SQL 2008 R2 SNAC drivers, not the SQL 2012 drivers to work. Additionally, this message might be a result of connectivity problems to the SQL Server because of network connection problems or you might be connected to the server over IPv6.

Workaround    Download and install the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack as a first step. If the message continues, you should try again later when the network connection is more reliable.

Don’t require calculated columns

Avoid requiring calculated columns.

Workaround    No workaround is available.

Create Access apps at the root of the tenant site

Create Access apps at the root of the tenant site, for example create at http://contoso.sharepointonline.com/<yourappname> instead of at http://contoso.sharepointonline.com/subsite/<yourappname>.

Workaround    No workaround is available.

Asked for SQL 2012 drivers when create a report

When you try to create a report when connected to on-premise SQL Server, you might be asked to install the SQL Server 2012 drivers.

Workaround    Download and install the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack.

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Excel (release)

Protecting sheets takes longer

Protecting sheets takes much longer than in previous Excel versions. It’s not noticeable when you’re manually protecting a sheet, but if you have code that protects or unprotects sheets repeatedly, it can become a performance issue.

The delay is caused by increased security in Excel 2013 for password protected files, because it uses a stronger hashing algorithm (SHA-512). In Office 2010 the default hashing algorithm for password protected files is SHA1. This change makes Excel password protected workbooks more secure than they were in previous versions, but can cause a performance issue for some Office Developers.

Workaround This is by design so there is no workaround.

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Excel (preview)

Strange behavior when PowerPivot for Excel 2010 add-in is enabled

If you install Excel 2013 on the same computer where Excel 2010 has the PowerPivot for Excel 2010 add-in enabled, Excel 2013 enables the wrong version of the PowerPivot add-in. You might get several different error messages when opening a workbook containing a PowerPivot model and you can’t make any changes.

Workaround    Click File > Options > Add-ins to disable the PowerPivot for Excel 2010 add-in and enable the PowerPivot for Excel 2013 add-in. Only the 2013 version of the add-in will work with Excel 2013.

Workbook won't upgrade when a new connection is created before upgrading

If before you upgrade a workbook, you create a new connection by clicking Data > Connections > New Connection, you won’t be able to upgrade the workbook.

Workaround    Don’t create a new connection before upgrading. First upgrade, and then create the connection.

Unexpected Fields visible in the field list after upgrading a workbook

After you upgrade a workbook in PowerPivot, a “_Count of [Table Name]” calculated field appears in the Field List for each table.

Workaround The field disappears after you refresh the table in PowerPivot or Excel.

Lost diagram and calculation area layout after upgrading a workbook

After you upgrade, diagram and calculated field grid layout and settings are lost in PowerPivot. But no actual data or calculated fields are lost.

Workaround    No workaround is available.

Importing data feeds in PowerPivot causes a message about exceeding the maximum received message size

When you import an OData data feed, you might get the following message:

The following exception occurred while the managed IDataReader interface was being used: The size of the received message has exceeded the maximum received message size of 1048576 bytes, increase the Max Received Message Size value on the connection string and try again.

Workaround    To import this data feed successfully, change the MaxReceivedMessageSize in the advanced properties of the connection to the OData feed to “4398046511104” (without the quotation marks).

Upgrading PowerPivot workbooks with linked tables

If you used the PowerPivot add-in in Office 2010 to create a workbook with linked tables, when you upgrade the workbook to Excel 2013, you can’t refresh the data in the upgraded workbook.

Workaround    Delete the tables and recreate them in Excel 2013.

Documents with Document Properties set on them may enter read-only mode after saving

If you are running Office on a computer running Windows 8 that is joined to a domain with File Classification Infrastructure features turned on, the documents with Document Properties set becomes read-only when you save changes.

You can save the worksheet the first time. But you will see the following message: "The document was saved successfully, but Excel cannot re-open it because of a sharing violation. Please close the document and try to open it again." If you try to save the worksheet a second time, you will see the Save As dialog box.

Workaround    Do one of the following:

• To temporarily get the presentation to not be read-only, you can close and open the presentation again. The changes made up until the first save aren’t lost.
• You can deny Administrator read permissions to the %programdata%\Microsoft\FCI folder by doing these steps:

1. Open a command prompt by clicking Start, type cmd.
2. Right click the Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.
3. Enter the following command into the command prompt:

icacls ""%programdata%\Microsoft\FCI"" /deny *S-1-5-32-544:(OI)(CI)R

4. Press Enter.

If you have applied the second workaround, we recommend you grant full control of the FCI folder back to the Administrator group prior to upgrading Office to the final release by entering the following into a command prompt:

icacls ""%programdata%\Microsoft\FCI"" /grant *S-1-5-32-544:(OI)(CI)R"

KPIs from 2010 not work in 2013

If you used the Office 2010 PowerPivot add-in to create a workbook with key performance indicators (KPIs), when you upgrade the workbook to Excel 2013, the workbook can’t be used.

Workaround    Use the Office 2010 PowerPivot add-in to remove the KPIs from the workbook before you upgrade it. Change the KPI to a calculated field before upgrading to keep the DAX formula, and then make it into a KPI in Excel 2013.

Hierarchy and level names not appear correctly in Power View

If the names contain special characters in Conceptual Schema Description Language (CSDL), the hierarchy and level names of tabular models created in PowerPivot don’t appear correctly in Power View. The most common example is names that contain " " (space) that appears as ""_"."

Workaround    Use names that start with a letter and only use letters, digits, and underscores.

Double-clicking an Excel workbook in Windows Explorer opens a blank version of Excel

If you have Office 2010 and Office installed on the same computer, when you double-click an Excel 2013 worksheet in Windows Explorer, Excel 2013 opens. If you open Excel 2010, we repair the file associations to Office 2010. So if you double-click an Excel workbook in Windows Explorer, Excel 2010 opens but the workbook doesn’t open.

Workaround    If you want the workbook to open in Excel 2013 when you double-click a file in Windows Explorer, repair the Office installation to repair the file associations to Excel 2013.

If you want to open the workbook in Excel 2010, open Excel 2010 first and then open the workbook. You won’t be able to open files from Windows Explorer into Excel 2010 when the file associations are set to Excel 2010 while Office is installed on the computer.

Excel opens without a blank worksheet when started and shapes or charts don’t appear

If you have a personal macro workbook, Excel opens without showing a blank worksheet. Also, shapes and charts won’t appear when inserted.

Workaround    Press CTRL+N to open a new workbook or click File > New. To see shapes and charts, you can change worksheets or scroll the content in and out of the view.

Metadata files not appearing in the appropriate language

Technical Preview releases of PowerPivot contained metadata files that weren’t localized. So the category names appeared in English instead of the appropriate language.

Workaround    To see the category names in the appropriate language, delete the folder DataRecommendation and all child folders from C:\Users\<current user name>\appdata\Local\DataRecommendation.

Excel might not start correctly on some computers using Windows 8

If you have a hidden workbook in the xlstart directory on a computer using Windows 8, Excel might not start properly. The most common way to have a hidden workbook in the xlstart directory is the personal.xlsb book that is saved when a personal macro is recorded.

Workaround    Try to open Excel again. If you are trying to double click a worksheet to open Excel, you might to open Excel first and then click File > Open.

Help isn’t working in Spreadsheet Compare, Database Compare, Inquire add-in, Discovery and Risk Assessment, and Audit and Control Management Server

Help articles might not be available for the products listed in the title of this issue. If you click the Help button to find help articles, an error might occur or you might go to a generic Help article that doesn’t have any articles related to the product you’re using.

Workaround    No workaround is available.

Interactive Diagnostics doesn't highlight anything in non-English installation

If you try to use the Interactive Diagnostics feature in the Inquire add-in for non-English versions of Office, it might not highlight any cells that should be highlighted according to the selected category of cells.

Workaround    You can try the same feature using an English installation of Office.

Excel files exported from websites don't open correctly when using Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview

If you are using Office with Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview, and you download an Excel file using the Export to Excel feature from SharePoint or another website, Excel 2013 will not be able to open the file.

Workaround    After you click the Export button, a dialog box will open that asks if you want to open or save the file download. Click Save, which puts the file in the Downloads folder. Once the file is completely downloaded, it can be opened successfully in Excel 2013 by clicking Open in the Internet Explorer message bar or by double-clicking the file in the Downloads folder.

Excel files exported from websites don't open correctly when using Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview

If you are using the new Office with Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview, and you download an Excel file using the Export to Excel feature from SharePoint or another website, Excel 2013 will not be able to open the file.

After you click the Export button, a dialog box will open that asks if you want to open or save the file download. Click Save, which puts the file in the Downloads folder. Once the file is completely downloaded, it can be opened successfully in Excel 2013 Preview by clicking Open in the Internet Explorer message bar or by double-clicking the file in the Downloads folder.

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OneNote (release)

Not possible to insert Excel spreadsheets directly into OneNote

You can’t click Insert > Spreadsheet > Existing Excel Spreadsheet to insert an Excel spreadsheet into OneNote.

Workaround    Open the chart in Excel, copy it, and then paste it directly into OneNote.

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OneNote (preview)

Notes might disappear when scroll on page

When you scroll up and down certain OneNote pages, your notes might disappear. Don't worry, your notes should be safe. They're just not displaying properly.

Workaround    To see the missing notes, scroll to the place in a page where the notes should be. Then close OneNote and reopen it. You should now be able to see the missing notes. But if you scroll around that page, they might disappear again.

Not insert new Excel worksheet or edit existing in some Office languages

You might not be able to insert a new Excel worksheet or edit an existing Excel worksheet in an OneNote page. This problem only occurs for the following Office languages.

• French (France)
• German (Germany)
• Polish (Poland)
• Portuguese (Brazil)
• Spanish, International Sort (Spain)
• Dutch (Netherlands)
• Finnish

Workaround    No workaround is available.

Keyboard shortcut for Send a Smile doesn’t work

The keyboard shortcut for Send a Smile doesn't work.

Workaround    Click or tap the smiley face in the top corner of the OneNote window to send feedback.

Wait for streaming to finish before opening OneNote

When running Windows 8, OneNote might not open while Office is being streamed using Click-to-Run. When streaming finishes, you should be able to open OneNote.

Workaround    Wait for Office to finish streaming, and then open OneNote.

Not able to apply styles using keyboard shortcuts

You might not be able to apply styles using the keyboard shortcuts.

Workaround    Select the style you want to apply from the Home tab of the ribbon.

Text might appear as boxes

Sometimes when you go to a page in OneNote, your text might appear as boxes or rectangles. Don't worry, this is a display issue and your notes aren't affected.

Workaround    Go to the page with the boxes or rectangles, and then close and open OneNote again.

Font might change

Sometimes your font might change to a different font, for example to Cambria Math.

Workaround    If your font has changed, select all the affected text, and then using the font selector in the Home tab of the ribbon, set the font back to whatever you had been using (Calibri by default).

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Outlook (release)

Some commands might not work when Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010 is running and installed side-by-side with Outlook 2013

When Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010 is running and installed side-by-side with Outlook 2013, Outlook shows the following message when you click Send To > Mail Recipient in Windows Explorer or click File > Send As Attachment in another program:

This action is not supported while an older version of Outlook is running

Workaround    Close the earlier version of Outlook, and repeat your steps. Or create a new email message in Outlook and click Insert > Attach File to attach the file.

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Outlook (preview)

Empty Deleted Items can cause full Exchange Mailbox deletion

When you try to empty your Deleted Items folder, the entire contents of your Exchange mailbox (all content and folders) can be deleted. This issue can occur for the following reasons:

1. Outlook 2010 is installed with an Exchange account in Online Mode, but with an .OST file associated with the profile that could be created after switching from Cached Mode at some point in the past. Or you installed Outlook 2013 (upgrade or side-by-side) and use the Online Mode profile.

• The Exchange account must be in Online Mode (not Cached Exchange Mode) and the Cached Exchange Mode Sync Settings administrative template policy setting is configured.

Workaround    Download and install the MSI-based Setup update to Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013 Preview to fix this issue.

 Important    This download is only for people who installed the MSI-based Setup version of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013. Anyone who installed using Office Click-to-Run automatically receives this update.

No jump list items

When you right-click the Outlook icon on the Taskbar, you don’t see options to create a new mail, meeting, or task. None of the jump list options are there.

Workaround Do the following:

1. Unpin the Outlook 2013 icon from the Taskbar.
2. Exit Outlook.
3. Delete the following registry key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Setup

4. Open Outlook again and re-pin the icon.

Can’t open IRM email messages

When you open an IRM message, you get the following error message:

No logged on Office users are configured for Information Rights Management (IRM).

Workaround    Delete the following registry key:

"SignedOut"=dword:00000001

From under this registry key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Identity\Identities\youralias@domain.com_AD

Search isn’t returning results

When you do a search in Outlook, no results are returned. Instead search returns the following message.

We couldn’t find what you're looking for.

Workaround    Office Setup isn’t setting the registry keys correctly or not all keys are configured. You can do a repair to reconfigure the registry keys by doing the following:

1. Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features.
2. Click Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013 > Change > Quick Repair.
3. Restart your computer.
4. Give some time to make sure indexing has time to work, and then test search.

Error when connecting to Exchange 2003

When you configure Outlook 2013 for an Exchange 2003 account, you can get the following error message:

The resource that you are trying to use is located on an unsupported version of Microsoft Exchange. Contact your e-mail administrator for assistance.

Workaround    Outlook 2013 isn’t supported on Exchange 2003 and connectivity is blocked. Please connect Outlook 2013 to Exchange 2007, 2010, or 2013.

Outlook errors with Hotmail too many devices syncing

After configuring Outlook to use a Hotmail account on multiple devices or an account with a large number of folders an error occurs when you try to sync:

There are too many devices syncing with this account. To sync using Outlook, try removing another device that is connected with this account such as a phone or another computer.

There is a limit placed on the total number of folders, including subfolders that can sync with Hotmail including use of multiple devices. The more devices you use to sync a large number of folders, the more likely you are to reach this limit.

Workaround    Sync only the folders you absolutely need.

Outlook only shows one Hotmail calendar

After configuring a Hotmail account in Outlook you are only able to see one calendar even if you have multiple calendars in Hotmail.

Workaround    No workaround is available.

Adding a new Hotmail account times out

When adding a new Hotmail account to Outlook the operation never completes or times out with an error "An encrypted connection to your mail server is not available

Workaround    Manually add the Hotmail account by doing the following:

1. Open Outlook.
2. Click File > Account Settings > Account Settings > New > E-Mail account.
3. Select Manual setup or additional server types, and click Next.
4. Select Exchange ActiveSync, and click Next.
5. In the Server Settings dialog box, enter your account information.
6. In the Mail Server field, enter m.hotmail.com and click Finish.

Installing Microsoft Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 side by side may cause send and receive issues in Windows Live accounts

If you have Office 2010 and Outlook Hotmail Connector installed and then install Office C2R or MSI Outlook on the same computer (side by side), Outlook migrates the connected Hotmail/Live accounts to Exchange Active Sync (EAS). After migration, you may not be able to send or receive (sync) email for the migrated Hotmail accounts.

Workaround    After the migration finishes manually set the server name for each migrated Hotmail/Live account using Outlook Account Settings.

1. Click File, then Account Settings dropdown. Select Account Settings.
2. Double click the Hotmail account that isn’t working. It will be of type Exchange Active Sync.
3. Set the Server name as: m.hotmail.com
4. Click Next. A dialog appears Congratulations! All test completed successfully. Close to continue.
5. Close the dialog and click Finish.
6. Optionally, switch to the Windows Live account using the Navigation Pane and click Send/Receive to ensure sync begins.

“Auto Account Setup” may configure some Windows Live accounts as POP3 instead of Exchange ActiveSync (EAS)

If you have a Windows Live account on a domain other than @live.com or @hotmail.com (for example, @msn.com, @hotmail.co.uk, @hotmail.co.jp, @live.de or other country specific domains), and use “Auto Account Setup” to automatically configure your account, it will set it up as a POP3 account instead of Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) account.

Workaround    If you have a Windows Live account on a domain other than @live.com or @hotmail.com you can manually configure your account in Outlook 2013.

1. Click File > Add Account.
2. In the Auto Account Setup dialog, select Manual setup or additional server types, and click Next.
3. In the Choose Service dialog, select Exchange ActiveSync, and click Next.
4. In the Server Settings dialog, type your name and email address. In the Mail server field, enter m.hotmail.com. Type a password and click Next.
5. A dialog box appears Congratulations! All test completed successfully. Close to continue.
6. Close the dialog and click Finish.
7. Optionally, switch to the Windows Live account using the Navigation Pane and click Send/Receive to ensure sync begins.

Adding Favorites for people using Exchange Active Sync won’t work

If you try to add people to favorites using an Exchange Active Sync (EAS) account like Hotmail, the addition silently fails.

Workaround    No workaround is available.

Address fields might be incorrect in non-East Asian languages

In the person card's inline edit for non-East Asian languages, address fields might be remapped to incorrect address fields.

Workaround    In the person card's read mode, click the appropriate Outlook profile to bring up the contact inspector and correct the fields.

Forced to correct concatenated addresses

In the person card's inline edit, the Check Address dialog box forces you to correct concatenated addresses each time you update the address field.

Workaround    Open the Check Address dialog box again, and then move or resave the address fields in their correct locations.

Yomi name entered in the Check Name dialog box isn't saved

A yomi name entered in the person card's inline edit check name dialog box isn’t saved.

Workaround    From the person card, under Profiles, click the appropriate Outlook profile for the person to open the contact inspector and allow for the yomi entry.

Editing a contact through the person card and closing Outlook before clicking Save button loses the changes

If you edit a contact and don’t click Save or Cancel before you try to close Outlook, you’re asked to save your changes. But even if you click Save, the changes aren’t saved.

Workaround    Make sure to save any inline edit contact changes before trying to close Outlook.

Sending email to a Contact Group from the People Hub causes Outlook to crash

Sending email to a Contact Group from the People Hub causes Outlook to crash.

Workaround    Do one of the following:

• Use another view in the People module, like the Business Card View.
• Type the contact group in the To: line of a new email message

People Pane carousel doesn’t update when using inline response options

If you click Reply, Reply All, or Forward for a message in the Reading Pane to start a response in the main Outlook window, the People Pane's carousel continues to show the people in the original message. It won’t show any recipients you add or remove.

Workaround    Click Pop Out that is above the Send button in the upper left corner of the Reading Pane to open a new window for the email with all previous content.

Adding Favorites when Outlook is in online or hybrid mode might not work

In Outlook online or hybrid mode, if you don’t have any Favorites to start out with, the People Peek always shows Loading, and it might not be possible to add Favorites.

Workaround    Restart Outlook and add a person to Favorites.

Outlook crashes when trying to search

If a Windows Search cache file gets corrupted, Outlook crashes every time you try to search. Outlook can crash when you are running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, or Windows 8 pre-release builds.

Workaround    To use search again, you must delete the offending cache files by doing the following:

1. Delete all files under C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Caches\.

You might have end several processes to get everything deleted.

2. Delete all files under C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Caches\, where<UserName> is the name of the Windows user.
3. Restart Windows.

Two entries for Hotmail account

If you had a Hotmail account in Outlook 2010 before installing Outlook 2013, you will see two entries for your Hotmail account in Outlook 2013. One is the old MAPI account that is now disabled and the other is the new Exchange Active Sync (EAS) account that works. Outlook 2013 keeps the old account because it might contain local data never synced to the server including Tasks, Rules, Journal, or Note items. Unfortunately, this data can’t be copied to the new account. If your new account has all the information you need, you can remove the old account from your profile.

Workaround    If your new account has all the information you need, you can remove the old account from your profile by doing the following:

1. Open Outlook 2013.
2. Click File > Account Settings > Account Settings.
3. Search for the duplicate Hotmail accounts in the list, and select the account that has MAPI in the Type column.
4. Click Remove to delete the account.

Outlook Hotmail Connector (OLC) accounts are read-only

If have Outlook 2010 with the Outlook Hotmail Connector (OLC) installed, and upgrades to Outlook 2013, the original Hotmail store will be read only and an new Exchange Active Sync (EAS) store of the Hotmail account is created.

In Outlook 2013, Hotmail connection is supported natively via ActiveSync. But the OLC add-in isn’t compatible with Outlook 2013.

Workaround    Manually create an EAS account in the case of a non-syncing Hotmail store:

1. Close Outlook.
2. In Control Panel, go to Mail (Outlook 15).
3. Click Show Profiles.
4. Select the profile with the OLC account by clicking Properties > Email Accounts.
5. In the Account Settings dialog box, select the OLC/Hotmail account (type is MAPI) and select Remove.
6. In the Account Settings dialog box, click New and enter your Hotmail information.

• Autodiscover works for @live.com and @hotmail.com accounts. In the profile wizard you can enter your full address and password and a new EAS account is created.
• To manually configure the Hotmail account through ActiveSync, check the Manually configure an account box. Click Next. > ActiveSync > Next. Enter your Hotmail information. Use m.hotmail.com as the server.

Vertical scrollbar is missing

The vertical scrollbar is missing.

Workaround    Edit the registry and delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Word\Options\WordMail\VerticalScrollbar registry key, and then restart Outlook.

Can’t paste an Outlook email to OneNote

Pasting an Outlook email into OneNote doesn’t work.

Workaround    Do the following:

1. Select some text in an email message in Outlook.
2. Press Ctrl+C to copy the text.
3. Create a new message.
4. Press Ctrl+V to paste the text into the new message.
5. Select the text and press Ctrl+C in the new message, and then paste into OneNote (Ctrl+V).

Outlook 2007 uses slow search when installed side-by-side with Outlook 2013

When Outlook 2013 is installed side-by-side with Outlook 2007, instant search is disabled for Outlook 2007. But Instant search works as expected in Outlook 2013. If Outlook 2013 is uninstalled, Outlook 2007 reverts to using fast search.

Organizer disappears when changing attendees

When you create a new meeting, the All attendees list might not show you, the organizer, in the list.

Workaround    No workaround is available. The organizer is still part of the meeting.

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PowerPoint (preview)

Presentations with Document Properties set on them may enter read-only mode after saving

If you are running Office on a computer running Windows 8 that is joined to a domain with File Classification Infrastructure (FCI) features turned on, presentations with Document Properties set becomes read-only when you save changes.

You can save the presentation the first time, and you won’t see a warning message. When you try to save the presentation a second time, you see the following message: "The file cannot be saved right now because the file is loaded by another user at the moment. You can wait a few moments and try the save again, or you can cancel this save and resave using a different file name."

If you click Try Again, you see the same message. If you click Cancel, you see the message: "We're sorry, something went wrong that might make PowerPoint unstable. Please save your presentations and restart PowerPoint."

Workaround    Do one of the following:

• To temporarily get the presentation to not be read-only, you can close and open the presentation again. The changes made up until the first save aren’t lost.
• You can deny Administrator read permissions to the %programdata%\Microsoft\FCI folder by doing these steps:

1. Open a command prompt by clicking Start, type cmd.
2. Right click the Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.
3. Enter the following command into the command prompt:
4. icacls ""%programdata%\Microsoft\FCI"" /deny *S-1-5-32-544:(OI)(CI)R
5. Press Enter.

If you have applied the second workaround, we recommend you grant full control of the FCI folder back to the Administrator group prior to upgrading Office 2013 to the final release by entering the following into a command prompt:

icacls ""%programdata%\Microsoft\FCI"" /grant *S-1-5-32-544:(OI)(CI)R"

Charts might not appear correctly if use filter or have discontinuous data

In languages where the default separator isn’t a comma, charts might not appear correctly if they are filtered or have discontinuous data.

Workaround    You can change the default separator to a comma, but this might impact other features.

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Visio (preview)

Find Shape feature doesn’t work

If you installed Visio using Click-to-Run on a computer using a 64-bit operating system, the Find Shape feature won’t find any results unless you manually rebuild the search cache.

Workaround    Do the following to manually rebuild the cache:

1. Go to the start screen.
2. Search for the Indexing Options setting.
3. Click Advanced > Rebuild > OK.

The index will be rebuilt, but it will take some time to rebuild the entire cache.

After you add a data graphics legend, shapes are added to the legend rather than the page   

If you add a data graphic legend in Visio using the option Data > Data Graphics > Insert Legend, all shapes inserted after this will be added to the legend rather than to the main diagram.

Workaround Avoid data graphic legends or insert them only after all editing on the diagram is complete.

Coauthoring isn’t fully supported by some Visio templates

Not all templates in Visio properly support coauthoring completely, and coauthoring may also produce results that are unexpected. In particular Cross Functional Flowchart, Timeline, and Calendar templates have a number of significant issues. For example, in Timeline you may get duplicate milestones or milestones that overlap, and in Cross Functional Flowchart you may end up with shapes that aren’t in the correct location or that don’t appear to be in the right swimlane. The problems happen most commonly when the same users are editing the same shape or one is changing a container while another user is changing a shape contained in it.

Workaround    Avoid coauthoring on Cross Functional Flowchart, Timeline, or Calendar templates. Be aware that coauthoring may cause some unexpected results. We recommend using a copy of any important diagrams for coauthoring.

Color Picker diagrams using "No Theme" do not provide the correct set of colors

When a Visio diagram uses "No Theme" as its theme, the Color Picker does not provide the correct set of colors. When this issue is corrected in the future, your colors may change when you open the diagram using the release version of Visio 2013.

Workaround    The best workaround is to use a theme other than "No Theme". This issue won't affect other themes.

Ink does not work properly on Windows 8 Release Preview

When inking in a diagram in Visio on a computer running Windows 8 Release Preview, ink will not be visible until after the inking is finished. Ink will appear after the stroke is finished, but will not be visible while drawing.

Workaround    There is no workaround for this issue.

Adding new shapes when coauthoring on servers with high latency may result in a crash on save

In cases where multiple authors are adding new shapes to a diagram, it is possible that Visio may crash when you try to save your file. This only happens when an author has made changes before the program has received the author information for all authors. Normally, the process of updating authors happens very quickly after opening the document, but it can take up to several minutes on servers experiencing a high latency. This problem is often accompanied by coauthoring icons appearing on shapes immediately after you have added them.

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Word (release)

PDFs with diacritics and ligatures converted to Word document might not display correctly

When a PDF with diacritics and ligatures in certain scripts, like Hindi and Thai, is converted to a Word document, the content might not be displayed correctly. Although the PDF is readable in a PDF Reader, the internal structure might be corrupted in some parts (which you can see in the text when you copy and paste it from a PDF Reader) or the PDF might require additional layout processing, which isn’t currently supported.

Workaround    There is no workaround for this issue other than to retype the text that isn’t displaying correctly.

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Word (preview)

Documents with Document Properties set might be read-only after saving

If you are running Word on a computer running Windows 8 joined to a domain with File Classification Infrastructure features turned on, the documents with Document Properties set become read-only when you save changes.

You can save the document the first time. But the Word title bar changes to include [Read-Only]. If you try to save the document a second time, you’ll see the Save As dialog box.

Workaround    Do one of the following:

• To temporarily get the presentation to not be read-only, you can close and open the presentation again. The changes made up until the first save aren’t lost.
• You can deny Administrator read permissions to the %programdata%\Microsoft\FCI folder by doing these steps:

1. Open a command prompt by clicking Start, type cmd.
2. Right click the Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.
3. Enter the following command into the command prompt:
4. icacls ""%programdata%\Microsoft\FCI"" /deny *S-1-5-32-544:(OI)(CI)R
5. Press Enter.

If you have applied the second workaround, we recommend you grant full control of the FCI folder back to the Administrator group prior to upgrading Office to the final release by entering the following into a command prompt:

icacls ""%programdata%\Microsoft\FCI"" /grant *S-1-5-32-544:(OI)(CI)R"

Vertical scrollbar is missing

The vertical scrollbar is missing.

Workaround    Edit the registry and delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Word\Options\VerticalScrollbar registry key, and then restart Word.

Online videos aren’t keyboard accessible

Videos aren’t keyboard accessible for video.

Workaround    Click inside the video to enable keyboard functionality. When return to the Word document, you should now have keyboard access to videos.

getSelectedDataAsync calls when selecting only a textbox might cause Word to crash

Calling getSelectedDataAsync using the coerce types ooxml or html when a textbox is selected might cause the object remaining selected or Word crashing.

Workaround    Select the textbox by a text selection that includes the textboxes anchor instead.

Extra newline using IME

Pressing Enter key to finalize composition string in vertical text box shows the insertion point at the beginning of the finalized string, and inserts extra newline at the end.

Workaround    Delete the extra newline and move the insertion point manually.

String duplicated in vertical text box using IME

Finalized string is duplicated in vertical text box when you move the insertion point using the mouse.

Workaround    You can manually delete the duplicate text.

Charts might not appear correctly if use filter or have discontinuous data

In languages where the default separator isn’t a comma, charts might not appear correctly if they are filtered or have discontinuous data.

Workaround    You can change the default separator to a comma, but this might impact other features.

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