Why will word on apple not let me copy previous text?

Check Word for an activation, subscription, certificate, or reduced functionality warning first, because affected Office for Mac installations can open and print documents but cannot edit, save, or create them.

1. Check Word’s activation and update state

Microsoft reports that, starting July 13, 2026, some Office installations on macOS can enter reduced functionality mode and lose editing capabilities.^1^

1. Look at the top of Word and under Word → About Microsoft Word for an activation, subscription, certificate, or reduced-functionality message.
2. If one appears, follow Microsoft’s Update Microsoft 365 or Office on your macOS or iOS device remediation: https://aka.ms/CertDialog
3. In Word, select Help → Check for Updates.
4. Install all available updates, quit Word completely, and reopen it.
5. Open a new blank document, type a few words, and try selecting them.

2. If there is no warning, restart the Mac

For the matching symptom where Word for Mac cannot select text, the moderator-recommended first action is to restart Word or the Mac.^2^

1. Save any work that can still be saved.
2. Select Apple menu → Restart rather than merely closing the MacBook lid.
3. Reopen Word and test a new blank document.

The blank-document test separates a Word-wide failure from a restriction or problem affecting one document.

3. Test keyboard selection

Click before the text, hold Shift, and press an arrow key. This is a supported way to create a text selection.^3^

• Keyboard selection works but mouse/trackpad dragging does not: check Word → Preferences → Edit → Drag-and-drop text editing, and review the drag options under macOS System Settings → Accessibility → Trackpad.^4^
• Neither keyboard nor pointer selection works: continue with the application-wide recovery steps below.

4. If only one document is affected

Check Review → Protection → Permissions. Information Rights Management can prevent copying, although it is less likely to explain text that cannot be selected at all.

For a restricted document:

• If you are the owner, select Review → Protection → Permissions → No Restrictions, then confirm Remove Restrictions.
• Alternatively, select Restricted Access → More Options → Allow people with Read permission to copy content.
• If an organization applied a rights-management template, ask the document owner or administrator to change the permission; manually applied permissions and template-based restrictions behave differently.^5^

5. If every document is affected

Create a temporary macOS account:

1. Open System Settings → Users & Groups.
2. Add a temporary user; an administrator password may be required.
3. Sign out, sign into that account, open Word, and test a blank document.

If selection works there, the result indicates a user-profile-specific Office configuration or file issue. If it also fails there, uninstall Office for Mac and reinstall it from the Services & subscriptions page of the Microsoft account associated with Office. This sequence was recommended in a closely matching Word-for-Mac case.^6^

Back up unsaved local documents before uninstalling. If updating, activation remediation, restart, blank-document testing, and reinstalling do not restore selection, use Contact Us on Microsoft’s Word for Mac known-issues page.^1^

References

1. Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in Word for Mac | Microsoft Support
2. I can no longer select text in Word - Microsoft Q&A
3. No text selected
4. Select text with mouse - Microsoft Q&A
5. [Mac](https://support.microsoft.com/word/restrict-access-to-documents-with-information-rights-management-in-word)
6. I recently updated my Mac to Sequoia and I can no longer copy and paste from my Word documents. It works okay from emails but not from any of my Word documents - Microsoft Q&A