I am not sure if here is right place to post this - I have also posted this problem on Microsoft Office forums. I am only posting here cause I saw Office 2016 had a problem associated with an old version of Avast but I am running the latest version.
I cannot open any Office files I download onto my pc, if I try to click them from file explorer I get an error in the office app that says
word experienced an error trying to open the file.
Try these suggestions:
Check the file permissions for the document or drive.
Make sure there is sufficient free memory and disk space
Open the file in the Text recovery converter.
My permissions are fine for all files on pc, they should be okay for office documents. Also, I have run some of the files in the download folder in the past, this error only started in the last few weeks.
I have 16 gb of ram and 894 gb of free space on drive, so space isn’t the issue.
If I try to open a file up from within a office application, I get an error that says it cannot read the file, if I select repair it repeats the error again. The help box suggests turning off anti virus, which I would do if file was urgent but am not entirely prepared to do for an entire downloads folder.
The bottom part is why I am trying here, I would like to be able to use files but don’t really want to have my pc open to potentially unsafe downloads.