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          Restoring Office Document Associations after Sequoia Upgrade

   Adam Engst

   Thanks to user Ed68 on TidBITS Talk for reporting [1]the solution to a
   problem that cropped up after he upgraded his M1 MacBook Pro to macOS
   15 Sequoia. He had also updated to the latest version of Office for Mac
   (presumably '[2]Microsoft Office for Mac 16.89,' 14 September 2024) the
   same day, and something about the two updates blocked opening Office
   documents.

   Whenever he tried to open Word or Excel documents, the Finder attempted
   to open them in other apps, like Preview. When he tried to force the
   Finder to open a Word document with Word itself, he would get a message
   saying, 'Apple could not verify 'filename.docx' is free of malware that
   may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy.' Opening other file types
   worked fine.

   Ed68 had seen [3]other reports of this problem on the Apple Support
   Community forums, and a few hours after his initial post, he returned
   with the fix, which is to reassociate .docx and .xlsx files with Word
   and Excel, respectively. To do this:
    1. Select any .docx file in the Finder.
    2. Choose File > Get Info.
    3. In the Info window's Open With section, choose Microsoft Word.
    4. Click the Change All button.

   If necessary, repeat those steps for .xlsx files and Microsoft Excel. I
   haven't seen complaints about .pptx files and PowerPoint, but a
   reassociation is worth trying if you can't open your presentations. I
   presume something about the LaunchServices database had become
   corrupted during the updates.

   While this inability to open Word and Excel documents is far from
   universal after upgrading to Sequoia, enough people chimed in on the
   Apple Support Community thread to indicate that we're not talking about
   a one-off issue. It's impossible to know if the problem lies with
   Sequoia or Microsoft 365, but if you encounter it, the fix is easy.

References

   Visible links
   1. https://talk.tidbits.com/t/sequoia-and-microsoft-office-365-issue/29084?u=ace
   2. https://tidbits.com/watchlist/microsoft-office-for-mac-16-89/
   3. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255762766?sortBy=rank

   Hidden links:
   4. https://tidbits.com/uploads/2024/10/Get-Info-association.png

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