I came across a really bizarre issue on my Mac regarding the toolbar icons in Word (and Excel). For example, the save button now contained an icon of scissors and the up arrow on the scroll bar was now the spell check icon. Needless to say, this mix-up is less than convenient.

I did a bit of research online and found several threads talking about the issue:

• Microsoft Office: Mac 2011 Toolbar Icons are Screwed Up
• How do I repair strange toolbar icons?
• Why are my toolbar icons all wrong?

You can read about each proposed solution in detail by visiting the respective link above, however what did the trick for me was the following one:

• Ensure all Microsoft products are quit, including Outlook, Word, Excel, Communicator, etc.
• Launch Terminal: Applications > Utilities > Terminal.app
• Type in cd /Library and press ENTER.
• Type in sudo mv Automator Automator_Old, hit ENTER.
• Enter your Mac password and hit ENTER again.
• Launch Microsoft Word.
• Go to: Help > Check for Updates and then press the “Check for Updates” button.
• You should now see an update; for me it was update 14.2.5.
• Quit Microsoft Word and install the update.
• Go back to Terminal and type: sudo mv Automator_Old Automator followed by your password again.
• Launch Microsoft Word and your icons should be restored.

I think Microsoft Office tried to update some time ago, but failed. I didn’t worry much about it then, but that could have been the catalyst for the icons getting mixed up. By temporarily moving the Automator folder, it will download and install the update again. After that’s completed, we just move the Automator folder back.

I hope this helps someone else. It definitely beats reinstalling and reconfiguring all Microsoft products again — especially Outlook.

Featured image by Clever Sparkle.

Comments (23)

Previously posted in WordPress and transferred to Ghost.

embu7
November 20, 2012 at 6:12 am

Awesome – did the trick – thank you for the clear and concise step-by-step.

Michael
January 3, 2013 at 5:57 pm

Woo-hoo!!! THANK YOU!

Worked perfectly. Many thanks — you’re my new hero!

Matt
January 17, 2013 at 7:10 pm

Didn’t work for me.

When I click “Check for Update” it tells me everything is up-to-date.

Bummer.

Ryan Sechrest
January 19, 2013 at 11:23 pm

Sorry to hear. Check out some of the other solutions mentioned in the threads I linked to above.

Martin
February 9, 2013 at 3:54 pm

you can also load the update manually from MS Download Center :
for US:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/office.aspx?q=office

– replace the coubtry suffix for your country for example Germany:

http://www.microsoft.com/de-de/download/office.aspx?q=office

filter to Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 and download ,
rename the Automator, install the update, rename back – done

good luck from Munich

Ryan
February 9, 2013 at 5:57 pm

Thanks, Martin!

Andy T
July 27, 2013 at 6:14 am

This is awesome! Thank you so very much. Even on the Microsoft sites, I couldn’t find this helpful information.

Alan Crombie
September 20, 2013 at 4:39 pm

Thanks from sunny Scotland. Your instructions worked spot-on and the scissors on Save etc. have disappeared.

I was pointed here by a colleague so I’m off to thank him too

Ryan Sechrest
September 20, 2013 at 10:10 pm

At least somewhere it’s sunny

Glad it worked for you!

Ed
October 28, 2013 at 9:48 am

Aaaahhhhhh… finally! thank you

KShack
December 4, 2013 at 9:23 pm

Oh, my gosh, I hope you can help me. I followed your instructions. Like Matt, it told me everything was up to date. Then when I tried to open a document, Word crashed. All the Office apps crashed. I tried uninstalling and then re-installing from the disc. Then I went back in my Time Machine and reverted to the Office I was using earlier in the day.

I assume I messed something up on a more global level and it’s not allowing office to run at all now. I am a professor and I need to use my Office for a living! Can you help?

Thanks, Karen

Ryan Sechrest
December 4, 2013 at 10:38 pm

What I would try next is:

(1) Close all Microsoft programs.

(2) Go to Username > Library > Preferences using Finder, copy all files starting with com.microsoft out of there (to back them up), and then delete them from the Preferences folder. If the Library folder is not visible in your home directory, click on Go up in the menu and hold down the Option key– Library should appear in the menu now.

(3) Go to your Documents folder and rename the Microsoft User Data folder.

(4) Try starting Microsoft Word, for example, and see if it crashes.

KShack
December 5, 2013 at 9:39 am

Thanks, Ryan. I did what you said. And then my husband also found this helpful link on Microsoft’s web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2398768

Basically, it says that there are lots of other microsoft files elsewhere and you have to go through about 11 steps to remove them. I did all this and then reinstalled Office from the disk. It then prompted me to download an update, which I also did. Now I have Office working and my Save icon is back to being a floppy disc. Whew! Thanks for posting a response so quickly – I definitely lost some sleep over this and it was great to see such a quick response. Karen

Ryan Sechrest
December 6, 2013 at 12:03 am

Thanks for sharing the link; glad to hear you got the issue resolved!

mike
March 4, 2014 at 3:17 am

Superb, thank you!!! This also fixed my Outlook for Mac issue

jackie
March 6, 2014 at 10:40 pm

Thank you, it really help me a lot !!!!

Jan Oldenburg
April 26, 2014 at 10:34 am

Thanks for posting this! It worked for me like a charm–I thought it was associated with the most recent update I loaded, and couldn’t find a thread associated with that. This, like so many things about Office for Microsoft, should be fixable within the app.
Jan

Pauline
March 6, 2015 at 11:53 pm

Worked perfectly for me too! I didn’t have any updates but I manually ran the one that my office was supposedly on (14.4.8).
Yay!

Henry
March 12, 2015 at 7:20 pm

AWESOME!!! Thank you so much. Worked liked a charm. Scary when it says you may lose data but worth the effort

Laura
March 24, 2015 at 11:25 pm

Mine did not prompt me for a password the 2nd time. Exited the terminal window instead, and everything was working fine. Fixed icons in PPT even though I did the update through Word.

Thanks!

Gene
October 8, 2015 at 12:26 pm

Still working. Thanks for your help!

Gene

marcus
October 20, 2015 at 11:33 pm

Thank you so much this worked perfectly. This has been bugging me for weeks. Really helpful thank you.

Coen
November 16, 2016 at 9:14 am

Thanks a million for posting this clear solution. It helped me to restore my icons after them beeing weirdly mixed up. This happened after installing and deleting MS Outlook on my mac.

Best Regards.

C