Word 2016 DocProperty problems after Microsoft Office security update (September 2017)
Last update: 14 December 2017
Information
We got informed of customers that information in Word documents is lost after the installation of September 2017 security update KB 4011039 and KB3213656 for Microsoft Office 2016.
Symptoms are missing data in table cells (normal text, DocProperties, mail merge fields) when Word documents are opened and finalized. We already could reproduce the symptoms.
The issue is introduced by the following Microsoft fixes:
- KB4011039 (Microsoft Word 2016)
- KB3213656 (Microsoft Word 2016)
Clients and Conversion servers using Microsoft Office 2016 are affected.
The issue is Microsoft Office 2016 specific and independent to Folio at all, or to a specific Fabasoft Folio/eGov-Suite version. The Microsoft Office issue however affects Fabasoft Folio / Fabasoft eGov-Suite use-cases.
Solution
At the current situation, please prevent your systems (clients and conversion servers using Microsoft Office 2016) to install these hotfixes.
If you already have installed these fixes, we suggest to uninstall these fixes.
Details
For Fabasoft could reproduce the issue with Microsoft Office 2016:
- If a Word template has vertical merged table cells, the content of the table cell is not displayed.
- The content of the merged cell is not lost, also after saving the content. When you uninstall the fixes, the content reappears.
- The issue can also occur if Microsoft Office 2016 is used only on the Conversion servers. Clients may see the content on their client (with other Office version, or fix not installed). Converting the document by an affected Conversion server will lead to empty table cells on the finalized PDF.
Microsoft already included the behavior to the "Known issues" of these hotfixes and stated to address the issue in the October 2017 update.
Microsoft Security TechCenter Links
Microsoft KB4011039
Microsoft KB3213656