Outlook – “This file can’t be previewed because of an error in the Microsoft Word previewer.”

attachmentsmicrosoft-outlook-2013preview

The issue is:
Outlook 2013 simply will not give a preview of Word (nor Excel) docs in attachments.

Never had the issue with Outlook 2010. Using Outlook 2013 on Windows 7 64bit SSD with Word 2010.

I did notice that "Microsoft Word" is not listed specifically in Trust Center attachment handling, could that be part of the problem?
Excel, Visio, RTF and many more are there.

Update: strange, search can be performed in Word attachments… but can't preview Word file. So, Outlook can 'see' Word docs but won't let us have that preview.

For reference, here is a similar question I posted in the Microsoft Answers forum.

Best Answer

  1. Close outlook → Start Regedit
  2. Navigate to \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PreviewHandlers

Make sure to back up the contents of course

  1. Delete the key for Microsoft Word previewer

  2. Restart outlook → preview a Word doc & you should now get a message “ You should only preview files from a trustworthy source ”

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