Resolve Microsoft Office Run-time Error 53 or 70 on macOS

Description

If you receive a “Run-time error ‘53’” or “Run-time error ‘70’” message when opening Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, or Microsoft PowerPoint on your Mac, follow the steps on this page to resolve the error.

When Adobe Acrobat Professional 2020 is installed on macOS, it deploys legacy 32-bit Microsoft Office add-ins that are incompatible with the 64-bit Microsoft Office suite, resulting in the Run-time Error. These add-ins are not required for PDF creation and removing them does not impact functionality.

Use the Acrobat/Office Error Resolution Tool in Self Service+

1. Quit all Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

2. Open Self Service+ from the Applications folder.
   
   

   Open

   

3. In the search bar, search for Acrobat/Office error 53 Resolution press Run.
   
   

4. Open

   

   Click Run again and allow the process to complete.
   
   

5. Open

   

   Launch Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to confirm the Run-time Error no longer appears.

Additional Manual Cleanup (If Errors Persist)

If an error still appears when launching Word or PowerPoint, perform the following steps:

1. Open the affected application (Word or PowerPoint).

2. From the menu bar:

   • In PowerPoint, select Tools > PowerPoint Add-ins…

   • In Word, select Templates > Add-ins…
     
     

     Open

     

3. Select the following add-ins if present:

   • SaveAsAdobePDF.xlam

   • linkCreation.dotm

4. Click the minus (-) button to remove the add-in, then click OK.
   
   

   Open

   

5. Quit the application and relaunch it.

All Run-time Errors should now be resolved.