‘Macros have been disabled’ security warning when opening a Typefi Writer document

This issue only affects the 64-bit edition of Typefi Writer 8.7.1 or earlier and is fixed in Typefi Writer 8.7.2.

When you open a Typefi Writer document in Microsoft Word, you receive this security warning in a yellow message bar:

Cause

Macros are bits of computer code. Typefi Writer uses macros to turn unstructured content into structured content. But, some macros can be dangerous—they’re infamous for containing malware that will infect your computer if you run them. By default, Word protects you from files containing macros.

You should never enable macros in a Word document unless you trust the source of the file. Unexpected macros can pose a significant security risk.

However, if the macros are digitally signed, you will not receive this security warning. Microsoft explains what digitally signed means here:

A digital signature is a public certificate plus the value of the signed data as encrypted by a private key. The value is a number that a cryptographic algorithm generates for any data that you want to sign. This algorithm makes it nearly impossible to change the data without changing the resulting value. So, by encrypting the value instead of the data, a digital signature helps a user to verify the data was not changed.

Normally, Typefi Writer macros are digitally signed, so you don’t receive this security warning. However, our digital signature certificate expired on 8 August 2021, which is why you see this security warning now. We will update our certificate in the next release of the 64-bit edition of Typefi Writer (8.7.2) so that you will not receive this warning anymore.

Fix

Please update to Typefi Writer 8.7.2 (64-bit edition).