Error opening Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) from SharePoint

Applies to: Office documents in SharePoint opened using Microsoft Edge browser in Windows 10

Symptoms

Errors occur when opening a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document in SharePoint on premise (https://sharepoint.nexus.ox.ac.uk/).

After clicking on the document title you are prompted to “Open in Word”, “Open in Excel” or “Open in PowerPoint”, but you receive a “Nexus Authentication” panel instead of the document.

The same error arises if you select “Edit in Word”, “Edit in Excel” or “Edit in PowerPoint” while viewing document in SharePoint Office Web Apps.

You may also see errors “Word found unreadable content…”, “The file is corrupt and cannot be opened” or “Word experienced an error trying to open the file” when opening Office documents from SharePoint.

Office documents open correctly in Office Web Apps. Other types of document, such as PDF, open correctly.

Solution 1: Use Internet Explorer mode

This is a work-around that you can use whilst we work to fix the issue.

1. Select Start  , type “internet” and select Internet Options
2. Open the Security tab, select Trusted Sites, select Sites
3. Add the following websites to the list, then select Close and confirm any open dialog boxes to return to Windows:
    https://mysite.nexus.ox.ac.uk
    https://owa.nexus.ox.ac.uk
    https://sharepoint.nexus.ox.ac.uk
    https://officewebapps.nexus.ox.ac.uk
4. Open Microsoft Edge and select  > Settings > Default Browser. Set Allow sites to be reopened in Internet Explorer mode to Allow, select Restart
5. Browse to the document or document library in Edge, select  > Reload in Internet Explorer mode. If you are prompted then choose the option to “Open this page in Internet Explorer mode next time” and select Done
6. Login at the Nexus Authentication screen
7. Open and edit your documents as normal

Solution 2: Download a copy

If you don’t need to edit the shared document directly then this is a quick work-around that you can use whilst we work to fix the issue.

1. Visit the SharePoint library containing the document
2. Find the document you wish to view / edit and select  > Download a copy
3. Open the copy when it has finished downloading

Note that you will be editing a personal copy, not the shared version of the document in SharePoint. This might be suitable if you only need to view the document, or if you remember to upload the revised document to SharePoint when you are finished.