Microsoft Excel Mac 2011 Why Does My Page Turn Grey

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Why do Microsoft Office Word, Excel, et cetera open automatically upon login although I've disabled the 'Open at login' feature? Stack Exchange Network Stack Exchange network consists of 175 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. Office Mac 2011: Excel sometimes prints in grey For some workbooks/worksheets (not all!) the document prints in grey (is this grey scale?) and not in black. When I enable the setting 'Black and White' under Page Setup/Sheet, the page will print in black but I lose my colour column heading.

Note

Office 365 ProPlus is being renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. For more information about this change, read this blog post.

Symptoms

Paint

One or more toolbars are missing and cannot be added in Microsoft Excel for Mac.

Cause

There are two possible causes of this behavior:

  • The oval button in the upper-right corner of the document was clicked. This button 'toggles' the display of toolbars on and off.
  • There is an issue with Excel preferences.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, use the following methods in order.

Method 1: Make sure that toolbar display is not turned off

  1. In the upper-right corner of the Excel window, click the oval button.

    Note

    When this button is clicked, the toolbars are hidden (in any Microsoft Office for Mac application). A second click causes the toolbars to be displayed.

  2. If the toolbars reappear, quit Excel, and then restart Excel to make sure that the appropriate toolbars are displayed.

If Method 1 did not resolve the problem, try Method 2.

Method 2: Remove the Excel preferences

Step 1: Quit all applications

To quit active applications, follow these steps:

  1. On the Apple menu, click Force Quit.
  2. Select an application in the 'Force Quit Applications' window.
  3. Click Force Quit.
  4. Repeate the previous steps until you quit all active applications.

Warning

When an application is force quit, any unsaved changes to open documents are not saved.

Step 2: Remove the Excel Preferences

To remove the Excel preferences, follow these steps.

  1. Quit all Microsoft Office for Mac applications.

  2. On the Go menu, click Home.

  3. Open Library.

    Note

    The Library folder is hidden in MAC OS X Lion. To display this folder, hold down the OPTION key while you click the Go menu.

  4. Open the Preferences folder. Click View, click Arrange by, and then select Name.

  5. Look for a file that is named com.microsoft.Excel.plist.

  6. If you locate the file, drag the file to the desktop. If you cannot locate the file, the application is using the default preferences.

  7. If you locate the file and move it to the desktop, start Excel, and check whether the problem still occurs. If the problem still occurs, quit Excel, and restore the file to its original location. Then, go to the next step. If the problem seems to be resolved, you can move the com.microsoft.Excel.plist file to the trash.

  8. Quit all Office for Mac applications.

  9. On the Go menu, click Home.

  10. Open Library.

    Note

    The Library folder is hidden in MAC OS X Lion. To display this folder, hold down the OPTION key while you click the Go menu.

  11. Open the Preferences folder.

  12. Open the Microsoft Folder.

  13. Look for a file that is named com.microsoft.Excel.prefs.plist.

  14. If you locate the file, move it to the desktop. If cannot locate the file, the application is using the default preferences.

  15. If you locate the file and move it to the desktop, start Excel, and then check whether the problem still occurs. If the problem still occurs, quit Excel, and restore the file to its original location. Then, go to the next step. If the problem seems to be resolved, you can move the com.microsoft.Excel.prefs.plist file to the trash.

  16. Close all Office applications.

  17. On the Go menu, click Home.

  18. Open Library.

    Note

    The Library folder is hidden in MAC OS X Lion. To display this folder, hold down the OPTION key while you click the Go menu.

  19. Open the Preferences folder.

  20. Open the Microsoft Folder.

  21. Open the Office 2008 or Office 2011 folder.

  22. Look for a file that is named Excel Toolbars (12) or Microsoft Excel Toolbars.

  23. If you locate the file, move it to the desktop. If you cannot locate the file, the application is using the default preferences.

If you locate the file and move it to the desktop, start Excel, and check whether the problem still occurs. If the problem still occurs, quit Excel, and restore the file to its original location. If the problem seems to be resolved, you can move the Excel Toolbars (12) file or the Microsoft Excel Toolbars to the trash.

Note

If the problem still occurs after you follow these steps, the problem is not related to these files. If the problem no longer occurs, one of these files was causing the problem. If this is the case, restore the files to their original location one at a time. Test the application after you restore each file. Continue to do this until the problem occurs again. When the problem recurs, you can then assume that it is caused by the last file that you restored. Drag that file to the trash.

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Note

Office 365 ProPlus is being renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. For more information about this change, read this blog post.

Symptoms

When you create a hyperlink in an Office document and then select the link, you may receive one of these error messages:

Unable to open <URL>. Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server.

Unable to open <URL>. Cannot open the specified file.

<URL> = the hyperlink you inserted.

Note

The hyperlink does work if you type it directly in the browser or in the Open box of the Run dialog box (select Start, and then select Run).

Microsoft Excel Mac 2011 Why Does My Page Turn Grey And White

Microsoft excel mac 2011 why does my page turn grey and white

Cause

This problem occurs when the following conditions are true:

  • You are using Microsoft Internet Explorer:

    • A proxy server -or-
    • A firewall that does not allow HTTP requests to be placed on your local network

  • Internet Explorer is not your default browser.

  • The ForceShellExecuteregistry key is not present in the following location or is not set to 1:

    For 32 bit Office Versions installed on 64 bit OperatingSystems

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftOffice9.0CommonInternet

    For 32 Bit Office Versions installed on 32 bit Operating Systems or 64 Bit Office Versionsinstalled on 64 bit Operating Systems

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SoftwareMicrosoftOffice9.0CommonInternet

Workaround

Important

This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, select the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756 How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

To have us work around this problem for you, go to the 'Here's an easy fix' section. If you prefer to fix this problem manually, go to the 'Let me fix it myself' section.

Here's an easy fix

To fix this problem automatically, select the Download button. In the File Download dialog box, select Run or Open, and then follow the steps in the easy fix wizard.

  • This wizard may be in English only. However, the automatic fix also works for other language versions of Windows.
  • If you're not on the computer that has the problem, save the easy fix solution to a flash drive or a CD, and then run it on the computer that has the problem.

Let me fix it myself

To work around this issue, either add the ForceShellExecute subkey, if it is not present, and set the Value data, or if it is present, set the Valuedata of the ForceShellExecute subkey.

Adding the Internet Subkey to the Registry and Setting the Value Data

  1. Quit any programs that are running.

  2. select Start, and then select Run. Type regedit in the Open box, and then select OK.

  3. In Registry Editor, browse to one of the following subkey (create the keys when they do not exist):

    For a 32 Bit version of Office on 64 bit version of Windows

    HKLMSOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftOffice9.0CommonInternet

    For a 32 Bit version of Office on 32 bit version of Windows

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftOffice9.0CommonInternet

    For a 64 Bit version of Office on 64 bit version of Windows

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftOffice9.0CommonInternet

  4. Make sure the Internet subkey is selected. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then select DWORD Value. Add the following registry value:

    Value Name: ForceShellExecute

  5. Double-click ForceShellExecute, and then set the Value data to 1. Select OK.

  6. On the Registry menu, select Exit.

Did this fix the problem?

Check whether the problem is fixed. If the problem is fixed, you are finished with this section. If the problem is not fixed, you can contact support.

More Information

Microsoft Excel Mac 2011 Why Does My Page Turn Grey Hair

A hyperlink may not go to a Microsoft Word document or a Microsoft Excel worksheet after you use this workaround.

Microsoft Excel Mac 2011 Why Does My Page Turn Grey Paint

Office uses the Urlmon.dll file to handle all Internet transitions.

In this case, the Urlmon.dll file sends a request to get a file via http:// through the proxy server. The proxy server sees that the request came from Internet Explorer, based upon the HTTP User Agent field of the http://request. It then gives an error 403, basically saying 'Access Denied.'

The Urlmon.dll file gets this and simply returns the error message mentioned earlier. The error means that the request failed, but it never states why it failed.

The workaround is to simply use a ShellExecute() on the URL. This allows the operating system to start the URL on the default browser. If the default browser is not restricted by the proxy server, the proper page is displayed.