Table of Contents
Insufficient memory or disk space and Microsoft Word, the basics and the causes.
There are several reasons why Microsoft Word may receive the error message “There is insufficient memory or disk space. Word cannot display the requested font. “
Usually this is a corrupted normal.dot temple, a corrupted printer driver or an Office add-in.
I have already explained how to remove a printer driver in a previous post. Click here if you’d like to know how to delete a printer driver.
You can verify that it is a Microsoft Office add-in by disabling add-ins. Click here for a Microsoft tutorial to disable add-ins.
In the tutorial below I will discuss the possibility that it is a normal.dot file.
Let’s fix “There is insufficient memory or disk space. Word cannot display the requested font. “.
Show hidden folders in Windows Explorer.
If you already have hidden folders on, or know how to turn this on, you can proceed to the next step. Otherwise, follow the steps below.
Go to start and search for File Explorer.
Open File Explorer and click View.

At the right of the view screen you see Options, open options and click on Change folder and search Options.


Click on the tab View.

Scroll to Hidden files and folders and check Show hidden files, folders and drives.

Click Apply to save the option.

We now have show hidden files and folders enabled in Windows. We can now search for normal.dot. Normal.dot is marked as hidden, so if you do not follow the above steps you will not find the file.
Re-naming Normal.dot to NormalOLD.dot.
For the system engineers among us.
For the techies among us, I explain the steps below without screenshots.
Make sure you have closed Microsoft Word.
Go to \\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates.
Click the Normal.dot file 1x and then press F2.
Rename Normal.dot to NormalOLD.dot.
When you start Microsoft Word, a new Normal.dot file will now be created.
Restart Microsoft Word now and check if this solves your problem.
For the dummies among us a tutorial with screenshots!
Go to start and search for File Explorer.
Open File Explorer and then open the C-drive (OS).

Open the directory Users.

Open the directory that shows your Username. For me that’s Bas.

Open the directory AppData.
As you can see, the folder is grayed out. That means that the folder is hidden in File Explorer.

Open the directory Roaming.

..And open the directory Microsoft.

..And open the directory Templates.

In the Templates directory you see the normal.dot file.
Make sure you have closed all Microsoft Word files and right click on Normal.dot.

Choose Rename and rename the file to OLD_normal (.dot).
The renaming of the file is as a backup. If you delete the file you can no longer restore it when it appears that the problem is not caused by the Normal.dot file.

When you start Microsoft Word, a new Normal.dot file will now be created.
Restart Microsoft Word now and check if this solves your problem.
Recap
As I mentioned in the introduction. The problem can be caused by various causes, making it difficult to troubleshoot. Above is one of the solution, but unfortunately that does not mean that it also solves your problem.
If you have found another solution, please leave a comment for other users.
After trying a bunch of things, the approach above (renaming normal.dotm) finally did work for me. BUT THE KEY STEP WAS TO REBOOT MY COMPUTER AFTER I RENAMED THE NORMAL TEMPLATE. The first time I tried the above steps I did not restart my computer and it did not work. That is, if you rename normal.dotm and simply restart Microsoft Word without rebooting your computer, then the fix may not work.
Look at this page, and notice that the final step of Fix 1 is to RESTART YOUR SYSTEM: https://thegeekpage.com/ms-word-insufficient-memory-or-disk-space/
THANK YOU SO MUCH! YOU LITERALLY JUST SAVED MY JOB!
this works for me:
I deleted the files in the folder “fonts” of my windows.
then copied the fonts of another system in that folder.
then the error disappeared.
Thank you so much Bas! This problem came up and, as a student who really needs Microsoft, I was worried to the max! Then, this site passed my computer’s screen and ta-da! Problem solved! Your step by step solution with pictures helped me the most. Thank you again and I hope you continue helping others the way you helped a 15 year old student like me :)))
Worked great! Thank you for the easy to follow instructions.
It sounds like a broken install, well done for fixing it. You can accept your own answer as it solved your problem. Adam Mar 6 ’13 at 8:50
Very clever. Incredibly well explained. Thank you.
Thank you SO much for this fix. Your explanations and screenshots made it easy for this 70-year old!
thanks, worked great!
WOW! Thank you, it worked! After two weeks of not being able to print word documents and two IT tech tickets, I fixed it myself! One fix that I could do that was not blocked by the “administation”.
Even after going through the steps to show hidden files, there is nothing inside the “Templates” folder. It’s completely empty. From the “Microsoft” folder, had to click the “Windows” folder to find the “Templates” folder. Did a search of the “AppData” folder for anything named “Normal” and the “Normal.dotm” file came up in some odd folder, but locating that folder yielded no “Normal.dotm” document.
I added some new fonts two weeks ago and I’m wondering if that is the source of the problem.
No idea what I was doing or why, but followed your very clear instructions, and it worked like a charm! Thank you so much.
(At the beginning of your article, you state “Usually this is a corrupted normal.dot temple”)
Thanks so much, worked like a charm!
Fixed in no time, thanks!
This worked, thank you so much!!!!
Followed the instructions and it worked for me.
I had “word not enough memory to display font”. Tried you solution but no luck so I restored the original since I need the Styles.
Then the light bulb went off, I thought perhaps the font Helvetica might be corrupt. So I changed default font to Ariel Nova and made it default. And voila, the problem went away. The I tried a previous document with Helvetica as default and ooops the message came back. So I highlighted the entire text and converted it to Ariel Nova and then changed the default to same. Save and closed document. When I reopened, no message.
This worked for me, thank you so much!
Worked beautifully and so very easy to follow your description than the cartoonish videos that first require orientation to their manner of communication before you can even figure out what you have to do, then you have to stop and start and alt-tab back and forth doing the steps. Text is so often superior in help situations, and that is truly the case here. SMART CLEAR AND CONCISE. Thank you.
I have found this error comes when I install Inpage 3.0 pro or QPS (Quran Publishing System) on my computer. I have checked on my three different computer the problem was the same. And after uninstalling the above mentioned programs from my computer, the problems solved.
Really big thanks! It worked!
Thanks for the solution
It works for MS 2016 in Win 10
It worked! Thank you!
IT WORKS FOR ME, I ALMOST FORMAT MY PC, THANKS
Super helpful, thank you!
The instructions in the article did not solve my problem. But reinstalling fonts did it.
Dear Folks,
We had tried almost all the items here for the same problem, while we encounter the “There is insufficient memory or disk space. Word cannot display the requested font.” issues. All we see that , when an old documnet is open after the window 10 upgrade from windows 7, we see the above mentioned error. We noticed that
1. we can not see all the fonts while the old documnets are open in word 2010. only three fonts are show, but in new balnk document we can see the fonts form windows library.
2. Additionaly we can see the “blanks” in between the fonts list while we try to see them in new blank documents in word 2010.
Any help would be appreciated.
Regards,
Farooq
I have also found this error comes when I install Inpage 3.0 pro or QPS (Quran Publishing System) on my computer. After installing these software my word gives the same ” there is insufficient memory or disk space word cannot display required font” I have checked on my three different computers but the problem was the same. And after uninstalling the above mentioned programs from my computer, the problems solved.
None of the above worked for me. Windows 10 was also refusing to list fonts in the C:\Windows\Fonts window despite them clearly being there — so nothing to do with Word, Adobe, etc. I could see them listed in Word but they showed up as blank spaces in WordPad.
Turned out to be a clash between locally and globally installed fonts. It’s a new one on me but apparently nowadays double-clicking a font or dragging it to C:\Windows\Fonts installs it for the local user only (thus copying the file to C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Fonts); you have to right-click and select “Install for all users” to get it into the right place. I reinstalled all my fonts this way and everything has worked since.
Hello, this advice helped me! Thank you. I write here my issue just for another people as they can find solution here by internet search engine.
I have upgraded Windows 10, CAD system Solid Edge 2019 and I didn’t see symbols like diameter or flatness ..any important symbol to create technical drawing.
I noticed, when I work with Word, and try to use font Solid Edge ISO , the “insufficient memory or disk space” message appears. So I reinstall all Solid Edge fonts for all user, and it start to work.
Thank you very much.
yes!.. thank you so much @JK, your contribution saved me a whole lot.
i appreciate.
I tried a few different things to solve this issue, and ran into a wall until I managed to force Windows 10 to rebuild its font cache.
I mostly followed the instructions here: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/rebuild-font-cache-in-windows
But I ran into a “this file is in use” error trying to delete my ~FontCache files. So, I just renamed them to .old – restarted Windows and boom – issue fixed.
We are also having the issue show up. It wasn’t frequent at first, but it’s gotten a lot worse. It only appears to be affecting Windows 10. We have tried the Normal.dot fix and that works temporarily. We have also changed the default font to Arial, as I found another solution saying the default font could be an issue. We have removed and re-added the printer without using the print server. None of these fixes lasted more than a week or so. How has Microsoft allowed an issue to go on this long? Has anyone found a permanent fix?
Thanks Bas just solved my problem by following your above solution. I hope the solution will be a permanent one otherwise I will follow other suggestions reflected on this blog.
It did not work for me. I had one of word’s template cover pages and so I just removed that instead which I can add after I generate the PDF, I believe that may have caused some font error .
Just fixed this problem. In my case, it was the default printer causing this, switched to CutePDF or something else as default printer and it went away. So change the default printer to something else, and reinstall the printer with other/new drivers. Hopes this helps someone.
It didn’t wotk! I hope I haven’t screwed up other things. Please confirm I didn’t mess something else. Than you
Hello BAS,
as per your screenshot i am follow all the steps but luck. still getting same error. is there any other solution. plz. share.
Hi Bas,
Thank you.
I tried what you suggested but I still am getting the error message for a user. We have a custom font that is used and for some reason if i open a blank document and type anything in it with the custom font I can then open the files that were producing the error. Any suggestions? The machine is running windows 8.1 64bit and Office 2016 32 bit.
Hi Andre,
I’m sorry but I don’t. The post is a little outdated and I should jump into it again to find new solutions.
What custom font do you use?
Hi Bas, my company uses a custom font called “Frutiger Next Pro”
Thanks. this worked for me
Bas, your basic approach doesn’t work in my case. Easy to do. I’ve tried various other options like Safe Boot and re-installing drivers. And Repair of the Office suite. The option discussed in the responses re changing the name of VBA files has been tried, but my system won’t let me change the name of either VBA folder or VBA7 folder to .OLD. Any more suggestions.
Nop sorry, I think that the blog post is a little outdated.. should jump into it again for newer versions of Microsoft office..
Many thanks for the solution. It worked a treat.
It worked!
Hello Bas,
I have been having a problem with MS outlook and word 2016 for about a year. Contacted many people with some possible solutions, and mostly blank stares. Both outlook and word open but there is nothing to be seen . Occasionally you get bits and pieces of the various menus, but for the most part it is only the “outline” that appears. You can see the cursor but nothing types on the screen. Outlook is the same with the variable being sometimes you can see the email header but not the content. No other programs in the suite are affected. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
I get that insufficient error message when I want to paste into my old word 2000. I tried your first method to restore normal.dot. Nope – then I tried fix and repair from the original disc. Still no luck. My win 10 is both 32 and 64 bit. Thank you for whatever help you can give me.
Hi Bas,
I am having the same error but not the same symptoms.
I had Word 2007 and it worked fine for many years. I recently installed Word 2016 and only some of my older documents get the error (whereas others do not).
Plus if I start a blank document it saves and opens fine.
I tried deleting the Normal.doc and Normal.docm files, but to no avail.
I do not have a VBA folder (as a previous poster mentioned).
I am really stuck on this problem.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Richard
Thanks Bas it worked perfectly
thanks…
but this message “There is insufficient memory or disk space. Word cannot display the requested font” comes back again……….. but I afraid if it is due to memory problem…. b/c mt RAM is only 3 GB
no ways 3 gb is fine
worked for me too! Thank you so much!
Ok I have just started getting a problem with word 2013 running on Windows 10. I get the same message about disk space and font and I cannot print from word. I have tried renaming the normal file, the VBA and the file and doing a restart as you suggested. Ì have also tried uninstalling and reinstalling Adobe . Nothing has worked. Any other suggestions please?
Hello,
I have one user who started having this issue a couple months ago. I renamed normal.dot and that did resolve the issue 3 out of the 4 times it has occurred. This time it doesn’t help.
What should I try next?
Thank you for your help.
I just uninstalled Adobe Reader and that did not resolve the issue.
Thanks Bas – well written instructions easy to follow. Better than windows website!! Keep up the good work :o)
The error message came up every time regardless of changing the normal.dot.
What worked for me was uninstalling Adobe Reader.
Thank you 🙂
Thank you for this!
thanks
but don’t work for me
Thank you thank you THANK YOU!!!!!
No problem NO PROBLEM!! 😉
Have same problem with Win 10 and Word 2016. Have tried all fixes to no avail. Of course, Work can not save files as PDF. And Adobe can’t open Word files and save as PDF.
Please help.
Bas, I tried this but it didn’t work. I have Office 2016 running on Windows 10. Have you tried fixing this error in that environment?
Hi Harvey,
I had the same problem too. Follow the link below on “youtube”. Hope it solves the problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssabu4gYDYk
Hi
I had the same problem and error messages after trying the above solution it didn’t work. A temporary fix was to repair the word installation but on the next reboot the error would return. This made me think that another program was causing the problem and eventually I uninstalled Adobe Acrobat DC reader and “hey presto” problem fixed. I then reinstalled Acrobat DC reader and everything works as it should. Could have just been a corrupted file but problem is now solved.
Thanks – worked for me!
Np 🙂
This did the trick! Thanks!
However, I’ve now had to do this twice in about three weeks. Any ideas on how to get a more permanent solution?
Thanks again.
this is the best solution.
which answer by : Casey Croussore
the ( finally) text.
thanks a million ..
hossien shad
HI Bas,
I was really worried about my word files conking off everytime i open them, however your solution worked just perfectly! Thanks a million!
I found another solution which worked in my case (finally):
Close Word
C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\VBA
Rename Folder:
VBA7.1.old
C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\TextConv
Rename Files:
RECOVR32.CNV.old
WPFT532.CNV.old
WPFT632.CNV.old
Open Word
You will be asked to reinstall VBA; allow it
When done, re-start computer
Thanks! this fixed it for me however I only had to change the VBA7.1 to .OLD only and that fixed it. the other stuff was not needed for me anyways. thanks a bunch.
THIS DID THE FIX FOR ME ALSO! THANKS A LOT!
Great!!
In my files there’s no VBA, just VC, VGX and VSTO
Look in Program files x86
Will change this in the post! thank you.
Thanks a lot.
Just to let you know that I changed the name of the VBA folder and it worked. Phew! Didn’t have to change anything else.
I don’t have neither the VBA folder nor those three files 🙁
This problem really pisses me off, I don’t know what kind of morons work at MS. It is an old problem and they just don’t fix their shit.
I can open any of those problematic Word files in LibreOffice without any problems, those developers don’t have any of the money and resources that MS has, yet they can do it right.
Unfortunately I need to use a Word macro for professional reasons, and that doesn’t run in LibreOffice.
I am very hesitant to change things in Windows registry, but I noticed that no font font has been specified for the default parameter. What would happen if I entered, say, arial there?
I noticed that when I open a problematic file and replace all fonts (Control-A) with Arial, save it, and then reopen it, there is no error message.
I don’t know how to install fonts etc. Really, as a mere user without IT knowledge, I should not have to deal with such problems.
Thank you so much!! This really work for me.
Thank you so much!! This really works for me.
I have the error “Insufficient Memory or Disk Space” when opening ANY document in Word 2013.
The above did not resolve the issue (in fact, I have no Normal.* file, and Word does not ever generate one).
I have also tried the Office ‘repair’ option. No effect.
Hey, I really appreciate the thorough instructions, unfortunately it did not solve my issue. I just installed a new color printer and I am sure the problem is linked to the installation.
Very good tutorial, very well laid out steps and easy to follow – and it worked!!
However, it only worked for one document; the next document I tried to print displayed the same error message as before, i.e. insufficient memory…
So, I know how to fix the issue, and have used it now, many times – however there is obviously and issue that is replicating the error – can you help??
I have tried the same procedure but i am not able to open even after following the procedure, kindly advice
Many thanks for this tutorial which is far superior than any found on Microsoft and elsewhere.It’s clear, concise and straight forward unkie all others I have seen regarding this issue which is now solved.
Hey, thank you for this compliment!
What she said! Quick, concise and easy! Thanks for the help!
At first I wasn’t going to leave a comment, but I’m so appreciative of the assistance that you provided that I thought it was the right thing to do. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this tutorial and posting it. It solved my problem and my fonts look the way that I want them to look.
Thank you 🙂
You are my hero! I am not very computer savvy, and found the instructions very easy to follow. I was able to fix the problem in less than 5 minutes.
Thank you so much.
hi, i’m using MS word 2007. I have no problem when i open the ms word (blank document) but when i open a file, there will be an error then a pop message will appear saying there is sufficient disk space. could not load fonts (or at least something like that). Do you know whow can I fix it? I tried to follow the steps above but the results is the same.
try to follow these steps and be sure youve closed all your microsoft office apps.
I have the same problem as Karen, every since i downloaded the blasted Windows 10 and have made 7 calls to Microsoft. Mine are .docs eg letter to xys.doc Are you suggesting I change that on every document? Mine are all stored in my documents folder.
Hello, I tired renaming my normal.dot to OLD_normal.dot and reopened Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 using windows 10 and I still receive “There is insufficient memory or disk space word cannot display the requested font”. I can print from all of the other Office programs like excel and publisher. Any other ideas would be great 🙂
Thank you,
Karen
Please follow this and see if it worked out:
Re-start your computer > do not open any Microsoft office programs > go to the file and re-name it > Re-start again do not open any microsoft office program > Check to see if you have an OLD file in the directory > if yes, then open Microsoft office.
OR instead of re-naming try to place it in ‘your documents’.
Hello. My issue is with Outlook linked to my gmail account. I get the same message about insufficient memory and font so I tried this process to fix it. When I renamed Normal to OLD, nothing happened. I tried getting back into Outlook and still had the problem so I restarted the PC. Still not working so I went to check the file. There’s wasn’t a new normal template. I opened a word document and checked again to see if it would create the template. It did but now the OLD template has disappeared (along with any other files under template) and Outlook still can’t display the font.
Re-start your computer > do not open any Microsoft office programs > go to the file and re-name it > Re-start again do not open any microsoft office program > Check to see if you have an OLD file in the directory > if yes, then open Microsoft office.
OR instead of re-naming try to place it in ‘your documents’.