Why is my Microsoft Word window always on top of other windows?

Question

For one reason or another, my Word suddenly decided to stay always on top of all other windows. This is terribly annoying. The odd thing is: of three documents I have open, two are on top of everything else, and one behaves normal.

I found one other mention of this behavior. I wonder whether this is a known bug and whether there's a workaround. Sometimes closing all windows helps, but later the behavior creeps back. Other Office products don't seem to show this behavior.

I'm using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010, 14.0.4760.1000 (64 bit).

Solution 1

This single-line AutoHotKey script can be used to toggle the always-on-top behavior of the current window whenever Windows-A is pressed:

#a:: Winset, Alwaysontop, , A

Solution 2

I just upgraded from Office 2007 to Office 2010 on Windows 7 Professional Service Pack 1. When the Word document was open I could not open any other application in front of it.

I resolved the issue by going to Add-ins then Actions. I only had two enabled 1) Address 2) Instant Messaging Contacts. I disabled both of them.

Solution 3

Here's another answer I found online which doesn't require rebooting:

1. In Outlook go to Tools → Options
2. Switch to the "Mail Format" tab
3. Uncheck "Use Microsoft Office Word 2003 to edit e-mail messages"
4. Close Outlook and Word
5. Re-open Outlook and Word
6. In Outlook go to Tools → Options
7. Switch to the "Mail Format" tab
8. Re-check "Use Microsoft Office Word 2003 to edit e-mail messages"

It should now no longer be always on top.

Solution 4

I had this same problem with Word in Office 2010 and after looking at the link to Matt Fleming's site in bdoserror's answer to this problem, was able to use the solution in the comment there.

I closed both Outlook and Word and started the Task Manager. There was still a Winword.exe process listed under the Processes tab. I killed that duplicate process and restarted Outlook and Word and now Word was behaving correctly.

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Comments

[Ray]

I also had this problem with Visual Studio 2012 some time ago.

[Adam]

Do you use the "Show Desktop" feature very often? I have heard that can attribute to some windows randomly being set to stay on top.

[Abel]

@adam: no, I don't use that feature, afaik.

[ANeves]

I offered half my rep in bounty, and nothing... no one is interested. :(

[Abel]

Tx for your answer on my long-standing open question. I tried to avoid option 2... I do not have the Always on top option in the start bar menu. Still, a +1 for restarting-suggestion ;)

[iglvzx]

You must be using third party software. There is no "Always On Top" option via taskbar or system menu (Alt+Space).

[Diamond]

Depends on your operating system.

[user3359503]

@Diamond Windows does not include an "Always on top" option for any window in the context menu natively, no matter what version of the OS. You need third-party software to do this.

[Abel]

Good suggestion! Didn't know AHK could do that. Finally a solution that works always (albeit not a fix for MS Word's buggy behavior, it's good enough for me).

[Sнаđошƒаӽ]

This answer is definitely wrong. There is nothing like "Always on top" natively in any version of windows.