When using Word 2007, you may open documents which would normally give you a "Security Warning" prompt similar to the one shown below, but the prompt does not appear. However, when you try to edit, print or save the document, Microsoft Word tells you that "the macros in this project are disabled."

Above: if this prompt does not appear when you open your document, you will be unable to enable macros.

Because of this, you are unable to enable macros.

NOTE: Sometimes, the "Security Warning" prompt has simply been closed. This prompt only appears when you first open a document - if you close it, it will not come back until you close the document and re-open it. If you are in doubt, close your document and re-open it to see if the "Security Warning" prompt appears before trying the steps outlined below.

This problem occurs when the "message bar" in Word 2007 has been turned off. To turn it on again (so that you can receive messages about when macros are disabled, and then take action to enable them), follow these steps:

1. Open Microsoft Word.
2. Click on the Office Button and choose Word Options.
   
3. On the left-hand side of the window, click on Trust Center.
4. On the right-hand side of the window, click the Trust Center Settings button.
5. On the left-hand side of the window, click on Message Bar.
6. Choose the options which says Show the message bar in all applications when content has been blocked, then click OK to close the window.
7. Click OK again to close the Word Settings window. If you had a document open, you will need to close it and re-open it for the message bar to appear.