[German]Microsoft has released several updates for Office 2016 on August 8, 2017. One was Update KB3213656 for Word 2016, which causes issues with merged cells in tables. The bug affects Word 2016 and also Outlook 2016.
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Update KB3213656 for Word 2016
Update KB3213656 for Word 2016 is a non security patch for the .msi installer variants of Microsoft Office 2016 (Office Pro Plus). This update fixes the following issues:
- When you open a document that has a legacy shape in Word 2016, Word 2016 may freeze.
- The hidden text isn't displayed even though the Print hidden text option is enabled in Word 2016.
- Japanese characters in the vertical text may be displayed as square boxes in Word 2016.
- Content with negative indent may be cropped in a non-first column in the presence of tables.
- The manual hyphenation functionality does not work as expected in Word 2016. Not all words that could be hyphenated are actually hyphenated.
- When you send an email with some spelling mistakes in Outlook 2016 in Windows 10, the regular proofing dialog isn't displayed as expected if the Always check spelling before sending option is enabled.
- Assume that you have a Word document opened. When you open another document that has a task pane add-in embedded, the add-in is displayed in the first Word document.
This update is only available as a download, but I guess, some users affected by the issues mentioned above has already installed this update.
Issues with merged cells in tables
I stumbled upon this issue at askwoody.com (Woody Leonhard has posted also an article here), pointing out, that there is an issue with merged cells in tables under Word 2016 (and in Outlook 2016). The issues has been discussed in details within this Microsoft Answers forum thread (the screenshots below is from this forum thread).
(Source: Microsoft Answers-Forum)
The user has a full patched Office 2016 Pro Plus under Windows 10 and describes the issue as follows:
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Have a word document that includes multiple tables, in each table there are merged cells. If the cell is merged you can't click on the cell or see the data in the cell. If you copy the table out of word and paste it into excel the data shows. If you un-merge the cells and paste it back into word it shows all of the data. I tried this on a system that is not patched and the merged tables display properly in word.
Another user pointed out, that uninstalling KB3213656 solves the issue within Word 2016.
(Source: Microsoft Answers-Forum)
Within another Microsoft-Answers forum post (also at Technet) a user shows, that it only affects vertical merged table cells (see image above). Because Outlook 2016 uses Word functions, the error may affect also tables in Outlook 2016. Repairing Office or using safe mode doesn't help. Microsoft hasn't confirmed this issue nor offers a fix.
Similar articles:
Microsoft August 2017 Patchday Summary
Windows 10 V1703: Update KB4032188 (July 31, 2017)
Windows 10: Critical Updates KB4035631 and KB4035632
Patchday August 2017: Updates for Windows 7/8.1
Windows 10: August 2017 Updates KB4038220, KB4034674, KB4034658, KB4034660
Further Microsoft Updates August 8, 2017
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