Various options on my Insert Tab and Format Text tabs within my Outlook new message are greyed out.

Not all options, just: Table, SmartArt, Chart, Screenshot, TextBox, WordArt, Equation & Drop Cap in "Insert Tab", and Styles within "Format Text" tab.

1. It is not because I am in the To or CC field. I am in the main email field. Similarly, I have HTML as the Format, and have tried Rich & Plain  this is not the problem.
   
2. I am running Outlook, Access, Lync, Infopath, Project & Publisher 2013, but Word, PP, Excel etc. 2010.
   
3. I have disabled Add-ins and also run in Safe Mode. This does not change anything.

Any idea how to get this working? I'm getting myself very puzzled...

• Edited by emshim Tuesday, May 07, 2013 10:37 AM

I have solved this issue: it was caused by having Outlook as 2013 but WORD as 2010.

I installed Word 2013 from my Office 2013 package and it has enabled the greyed out options. I assume Outlook uses Word options, and if Outlook cannot find the matching Word version to itself, it cannot offer the tools.

I assume this also goes for installing 34-bit and 64-bit versions, as they are saved into different folders - Outlook just isn't clever enough to recognise different versions of Word! :)

• Marked as answer by emshim Tuesday, May 07, 2013 10:56 AM

I have Outlook 2013 and Word 2013

I have the same problem

Evidentially  everyone has this problem

I guess it is a feature/bug that MS can't fix

terry

• Proposed as answer by MrGuinnss Wednesday, December 17, 2014 3:51 PM

I have Outlook 2013 and Word 2013

I have the same problem

Evidentially  everyone has this problem

I guess it is a feature/bug that MS can't fix

terry

• Proposed as answer by MrGuinnss Wednesday, December 17, 2014 3:51 PM

This is the result of not installing an office suite.

You can't mix 32 and 64 bit Office, so you should only have this problem if you don't install the suite or have outlook 2013 only. You can "fix" it by copying winword.exe to the folder with outlook.exe.

is the message plain text format or HTML? You won't have a lot of features if you are using plain text message format.

I'd  try  repairing office 2013.