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BriefCatch 3: Icon is grayed out and cannot be loaded

Technical & Troubleshooting

BriefCatch 3 may appear grayed out if you open a document in read only or protected view mode, or if you have an older format document, such as .doc, rather than .docx. BriefCatch also requires Connected Experiences to be enabled.

Word File Format: .docx Required

Note: BriefCatch 3 works only with Word documents in the .docx format. Older formats, such as .doc, are not supported.

BriefCatch 3 requires that the document is in .docx format. If you open an older format, such as .doc, BriefCatch will not load.

You can easily save any .doc document as .docx by navigating to File - Save As, selecting "Word Document (*.docx)" from the drop down menu, then clicking Save. Once saved as a .docx file, try opening BriefCatch again.

Read-Only View

A document in Read-Only mode cannot be edited. If a document is open as Real-Only, you will see this at the top of the Word window:

word-read-only-top

To exit Read-Only, at the top right of the Word window, change the Viewing option to Allow Editing:

word-read-only-allow-editing

You can also try opening the document again, ensuring Open as Read-Only isn’t selected.

Protected View

A document in Protected View cannot be edited. If a document is open in Protected View, you will see this at the top of the Word window:

word-protected-view-top

You will also likely see this message:

word-protected-view-bar

You can click Enable Editing to disable the Protected View.

Optional Connected Experiences

If you do have a .docx file open and you’re not in read only or protected view, ensure that you have Options Connected Experiences enabled. 

Connected experiences that analyze your content are experiences that use your Office content to provide you with design recommendations, editing suggestions, data insights, and similar features. The BriefCatch add-in will not load if this setting is disabled.

Windows

  1. Open a document in Word.
  2. Click File, then on Account along the left sidebar.
  3. Under Account Privacy, click on Manage Settings.
  4. Check the box next to "Turn on optional connected experiences", then click OK.

word-optional-experiences

If this was disabled, completely close Word, then reopen, and see if BriefCatch now loads.

Mac

  1. Open a document in Word.
  2. At the top of your screen, navigate to Word - Preferences - Privacy.
  3. Check the box next to "Turn on optional connected experiences", then click OK.

word-optional-experiences-mac

If this was disabled, completely close Word, then reopen, and see if BriefCatch now loads.