We all have seen the splash screen that appears whenever we launch a Microsoft Office program. Be it Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or any other Office program, a splash screen appears on the screen before actually starting the Office program. It looks pretty on the first run, but the same screen starts frustrating when you launch Office programs again and again.
That said, the splash screen in Microsoft Office programs is useful in some aspects. It displays all loading add-ones and other things and also lets you close the program in the mid-way, without having to wait for the window to launch. But if you run Office programs several times in a day, then watching the same splash screen again and again for a few seconds might frustrate you.
Users who would like to get rid of the splash screen and speed up Office startup can follow any one of the methods given below.
Disable Office 365/2019/2016 splash screen
Method 1 of 2
The easiest way to run an Office program without the splash screen. In this method, we use a switch to launch an Office program without the splash screen.
Step 1: Open Start menu or Run command box. In the search box, type winword /q to launch the Office 365/2019/2016 Word without the splash screen.
# To open Excel program without the splash screen, type excel /e, and hit enter.
# To open PowerPoint without the splash screen, type powerpoint /s, and press enter.
Method 2 of 2
This might not work with the latest version of Microsoft Office (Office 2019 and 365). Please try it and let us know.
Users who would like to create a shortcut of Office programs on the desktop can follow the steps given below.
Step 1: Perform a right-click on the desktop, select New and then select Shortcut option to launch Create shortcut wizard.
Step 2: In the wizard, under the Type the location of the item box, enter the full path to the Office program that you wish to launch without the splash screen. At the end of the path, add the switch (see the list below).
For example, if the path to winword.exe file is “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\WINWORD.EXE”, then the full path after typing switch will be:
“C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\WINWORD.EXE” /q
Here, /q is the switch for Word
Use /e switch for Excel, and /s for PowerPoint programs.
Step 3: Click the Next button, enter a name for the shortcut, and finally click on the Finish button to see the shortcut on the desktop. Double-click on the new desktop shortcut to run the program without splash screen.
You may now double-click on the Word desktop shortcut to open the Word program without the splash screen.
Use /e switch for Excel, and /s for PowerPoint programs.
Our how-to run Microsoft Office 365/2019/2016 applications in safe mode guide might also interest you.
John O'Boyle says
Did anyone ever define the reg change to bypass the splash screen for Office 2016?
Thanks.
JLOB
xaml says
Drinking lead you to develop a “social” media addiction, @Jack Daniels?
Maged says
I found out that these tips do not work if word (or any of the office suite apps) are launched by clicking on e.g. any word document which is what is mostly happening in my case (i.e. I usually don’t open Word first) so these tips are pretty useless in my situation:(
Davin Peterson says
I like that Microsoft added a minimize and close button at top of the splash screen, so If accidentally opened Outlook, I can close it without waiting for the entire program to load.
Niko12345678 says
Great! But what about Access? Thank you!
admin says
@ Jack Daniels
I do have a Twitter account. You can see it the right-side of the page. Anyways, http://twitter.com/#!/intowindows is the official account.
admin says
@ Dan F
It seems we need to change some registry settings to disable Outlook splash screen. Will cover about the same soon.
Dan F says
What would be the shortcut for doing this in outlook? The outlook splash screen is the most annoying one, and its the first one I have to look at each morning
Nabil Alkourainy says
Thank you for this neat trick. What about for Publisher, Outlook, OneNote, any shortcuts sans splash screen for those?
Bruce says
What about Outlook?
Jack Daniels says
How come you don’t have a twitter account?