That's actually a normal problem. You don't need to reinstall
Office Mac 2008. What you need to do is to put the the
Microsoft Word icon from your Desktop back to Applications Folder. To create a shortcut on your
Desktop, go to Applications folder, Right Click(Ctrl+Click) on
Microsoft Word then choose Make Alias. Just drag the
Microsoft Word Alias to your
Desktop. From
Desktop you will have
Word as a shorcut icon without any problem. If the issue will not be resolved then you need to uninstall then reinstall Office. Here's the steps:
] > Macintosh HD\Applications
* Remove Microsoft Office 2008
] > Macintosh HD\Users\<username>\Library\Application Support\Microsoft
* remove folder called Microsoft
] > Macintosh HD\Users\<username>\Library\Caches
* remove all Microsoft related files
] > Macintosh HD\Users\<username>\Library
* remove Microsoft Folder
] > Macintosh HD\Users\<username>\Library\Preferences
* remove all the (com.microsoft.[....].plist files)
] > Macintosh HD\Users\<username>\Library\Preferences
* remove Microsoft folder
] > Macintosh HD\Library\Receipts\Remove all Office 2008.pkg files
] > Delete Microsoft Office shortcuts from Dock
] > Restart
] > Install Office 2008
> Manual Install Updates
I hope this Helps! :)