Prevent Microsoft Office from auto starting on Mac

Question

Whenever I start up my Mac Mini (running OS Mavericks) or Macbook Air (OS 10.9), I have to wait while Word and Excel automatically load and open.
I've tried stopping this from happening via system preferences, but to no avail.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Check...

• That it doesn't have entries in System Prefs/Users & Groups [your account] then right hand pane, Login Items, making them auto-launch.

• That both are in fact Quit, not just that all their windows are closed, before you shut down or restart.

If both of these are OK, then...

• Switch to Finder.
  Open a new window Cmd ⌘ N then Go to Folder… Cmd ⌘ Shift ⇧ G
  Copy/paste this ~/Library/Saved Application State [including the tilde ~] & hit Enter ⌅ .
  Look for folders called com.microsoft.Excel.savedState & com.microsoft.Word.savedState & delete them.