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

This article provides information on macros, the causes of the security warning, and solutions to prevent this warning from appearing in Typefi Writer.

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

What are macros?

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.

Typefi Writer and any customisations are digitally signed, so why do you still receive this warning?

Causes

1. Certificate doesn’t install during initial setup

Typefi Writer v8.8

Typically, the digital signature certificate is installed during the initial setup of Typefi Writer. However, we’ve discovered an issue preventing the certificate installation on new systems that have never had Writer installed.

Users upgrading from an earlier version of Writer to v8.8 remain unaffected, as the digital signature certificate is already installed.

The absence of the certificate will trigger the macro security warning in Typefi Writer v8.8. We will resolve this issue by releasing the 64-bit edition of Typefi Writer v8.9, so you will no longer receive this security message. As a workaround, you can manually install the certificate by following the steps in our help article, How to manually install the digital signature certificate for Typefi Writer v8.8.

2. Typefi Writer's certificate expired

Typefi Writer v8.7.1 and earlier

Our digital signature certificate expired on 8 August 2021. As a result, Typefi Writer v8.7.1 and earlier versions will display a macro security message. We updated our certificate by releasing the 64-bit edition of Typefi Writer (v8.7.2), so you will no longer receive this security message.

3. Add-in certificate expired

You might see this security warning if you installed add-ins from external sources with expired digital signature certificates (for example, Wiris MathType versions before v7.4.8). Contact the add-in provider’s support team to address security concerns.

Solutions

• Workaround: If the certificate doesn’t install during the initial setup with the 64-bit edition of Typefi Writer v8.8, you can manually install Typefi Writer’s certificate by following the steps in our help article, How to manually install the digital signature certificate for Typefi Writer v8.8. (This issue will be fixed with the release of the 64-bit edition of Typefi v8.9).
• If you use Typefi Writer v8.7.1 or earlier, please update to Typefi Writer 8.7.2 (64-bit edition) or later.