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(890889) - Describes the issue where you receive the error An unexpected error occurred (error code -10660) when you try to open an Office for Mac document.

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Microsoft Knowledge Base Article

This article contents is Microsoft Copyrighted material.
©2005-©2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Trademarks

Article ID: 890889 - Last Review: October 6, 2011 - Revision: 3.0

You receive the error "An unexpected error occurred (error code -10660)" when you try to open an Office for Mac document

On This Page

SYMPTOMS

When you try to open a Microsoft Office for Mac document, you may receive the following error message:

The operation could not be completed
An unexpected error occurred (error code -10660)

CAUSE

This issue occurs when one of the following conditions is true:
  • You created the Office for Mac document with the Microsoft Office for Mac Test Drive, and the Office Test Drive is in the Trash.
  • You have more than one copy of the same version of Microsoft Office for Mac installed on your computer.
  • The Mac OS X Finder could not locate the Office for Mac program that owns the Office for Mac document.
  • The Office for Mac document has the wrong file name extension associated with it.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this issue use one of the following methods.

Remove additional copies of Office for Mac

To remove additional copies of Office for Mac from your computer, follow these steps:
  1. Click Empty Trash on the Finder menu.
  2. Click Find on the File menu.
  3. Click Local Disks on the Search in list.
  4. In the Search for item whose area, click Name in the Item list, click Contains in the Condition list, and then type Microsoft Word for the value.
  5. Click Search.
  6. If two or more Microsoft Word X for Mac programs are found, click the first one that is found, click Get Info on the File menu, and then note the version number.
  7. Single-click the next instance of the Word X for Mac program that was found, click Get Info on the File menu.
  8. If the two Word for Mac programs have the same version number, you must remove both versions of Office for Mac from your computer.

    For additional information about how to remove Office for Mac from your computer, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
    312172  (http://kbalertz.com/Feedback.aspx?kbNumber=312172/ ) How to remove Office v. X for Mac and Office 2004 for Mac Standard
  9. Install a single copy of this version of Office for Mac on your computer.

Re-associate document types with the Office for Mac program

If you do not have more than one copy of an Office for Mac program on your computer, or if you removed the duplicate copies of the same version of an Office for Mac program, you may still receive the error message that is mentioned in the “Symptoms” section. If you still receive the error message that is mentioned in the “Symptoms” section, you must re-associate each Office for Mac document type with their parent program. To do this, follow these steps:
  1. Locate one of each type of the Office for Mac documents that you regularly use.
  2. Click the first Office for Mac document, and then click Get Info on the File menu.
  3. Click the Open with tab.
  4. Click Other from the list of programs.
  5. Locate the Office for Mac program that owns the document type, and then click Add.
  6. Click Change All, and then click Continue.
  7. Repeat steps 3 through 6 with each document type for Office for Mac.

Verify file name extension

If the issue occurs with only some of your Office for Mac documents, verify that the Office for Mac documents have the correct file name extension. To do this, follow these steps:
  1. On the Finder menu, click Preferences.
  2. Click the Advance tab.
  3. If cleared, click to select the Show all file extensions check box.
  4. Close the Preferences dialog box.
  5. Click the document that is experiencing this issue, click File, and then click Get Info.
  6. Click the Name & Extension tab.
  7. If selected, click to clear the Hide extension check box.
  8. At the end of the document name, type the appropriate file name extension from the following list depending on the program that you are using:
    • For Microsoft Excel workbooks, type .xls for the file name extension.
    • For Microsoft Excel template, type .xlt for the file name extension.
    • For Microsoft Word documents, type .doc for the file name extension.
    • For Microsoft Word templates, type .dot for the file name extension.
    • For Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, type .ppt for the file name extension.
    • For Microsoft PowerPoint templates, type .pot for the file name extension.
  9. Close the Get Info dialog box.
  10. Repeat steps 5 through 9 for each document that is experiencing this issue.

APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Office X for Mac Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Excel X for Mac
  • Microsoft PowerPoint X for Mac
  • Microsoft Word X for Mac
  • Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac
  • Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac
  • Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 for Mac
  • Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac
Keywords: 
dftsdahomeportal kberrmsg kbtshoot kbprb KB890889
       

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Anonymous User Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 2/21/2005 2:51 PM
yes office 2004 in the trash was the trouble

Anonymous User Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 6/4/2005 4:22 PM
Solved my issues...had Office X in the trash after loading Office 2004. Once the trash was emptied, symptoms went away. Thanks for the help

Anonymous User Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 6/21/2005 5:47 AM
Office Test Drive still in trash. 30 seconds to find your link on google. 30 seconds to find info on link. and 3 seconds to fix. thanks very much.

Tony Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 7/3/2005 7:20 AM
A Trial version of office was on my computer. I got rid of it, and now everything works perfectly. THANK YOU!

Todd Schmidt Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 9/5/2005 5:15 AM
Found this page with a Google link. With your help, I realized that Office Test Drive was still in trash which hadn't been emptied. I did that--fixed. This was a great service. Thank you

Anonymous User Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 9/9/2005 1:46 PM
Re-associating document file types did it for me. Thanks guys!

Anonymous User Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 12/7/2005 5:53 PM
useful and thorough: it works. thanks.

Anonymous User Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 12/14/2005 6:03 PM
Found this procedure through Google. You rock!

anonymous user Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 1/5/2006 2:10 PM
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!! This saved me from great amounts of frustration!!!

Anonymous User Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 1/10/2006 12:36 AM
Please save us from hours of trouble, do NOT install a test version of the Office progam on my new Mac. I did not ask for it and with the programme I bought it came no clear warning about deleting the trial version before installation!!! This is just too poor from Microsoft side.

Anonymous User Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 1/24/2007 9:12 AM
Awesome help. Very detailed and complete. Empty trash did the trick for me.

MacGirl Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 4/11/2007 10:21 PM
Thank you for this useful info. Re-associating worked! I completely agree that Apple should stop installing test version of Office on the new Macs!!

Anonymous User Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 1/25/2008 12:50 AM
Hi Thanks for your help . I expected it to take all day! But with your advice sorted in 10 mins. Thanks