Hello. Is ms office 2008 or 2011 compatible with high sierra? I’m buying a new Mac.
Thank you
Tori
Microsoft stopped supporting anything older than Office 2016 on any macOS version but a couple of people on RoaringApps say Office 2011 works on High Sierra.
I recall having problems running an Office 2011 installer a few OS versions ago because the installer, not Office itself, required something Apple removed.
Since Office 2011 is 32bit, it definitely won’t run on whatever comes after Mohave.
I run it on HS. Haven’t noticed anything special since switching from El Cap.
Microsoft Office 2011 seemingly works fine on my High Sierra Mac (and Office 2008 launches, but does exhibit some oddness, in my brief testing, but it will still open documents).
@cwilcox is correct that Office 2011 is a 32 bit app, so it might not work in the OS following the next one (10.14); but that is a problem for the future.
Thank you for the info. Much appreciated.
Personally I dropped MS Office years ago for LibreOffice. I have never looked back. It is less bloated, supports all desktop platforms, has more functionality, and is open source and free (donations appreciated). It also opens and saves in MS Office formats and will just about open anything including Word Perfect and AppleWorks. It even has a draw program and relational database module similar to MS Access.
I would drop it too, but it’s not my choice to make. Thank you for your input.
I’ve tried many times to transition from MS Office to Apple’s stuff, and prior to that, Word Perfect and Lotus. Unfortunately, doing everything the Office way become embedded in my brain from having to use it for decades at work, and it would really slow me down. I also found that documents produced in non-Microsoft products would often render differently even if the fonts were identical on both computers, and this was a big problem for me. And I found that going from FileMaker Pro to Access or Lotus was like going to the Ninth Circle Of Hell.
I definitely agree with your comments on Filemaker. Unfortunately its new pricing model has placed it out of reach for many individuals and I have yet to find a similar relational db that is Mac compatible. In my opinion Apple should be ashamed for doing this as other than SQL DB’s and 4D, both with a steep learning curve, no other relational DB exists for the Mac that I know of that has a user friendly GUI other than Filemaker. Unfortunately when it comes to Filemaker, Apple seems to be aware it has no competition and is “milking this Golden Calf” for all it is worth.
Base, the DB in LibreOffice does have a GUI interface much like Access but its documentation is limited and it does have a significant learning curve to get it to work properly as a relational DB. However if you are not part of an enterprise work environment with deep pockets it may be worth the effort, as it does work on all 3 of the desktop platforms and does have SQL capability. Frankly I did not find Access all that difficult to learn, much easier than Base, and it has plenty of documentation and examples. It is also affordably priced for individuals. Unfortunately it only works on the Windows platform. Currently, if it would run on a Mac it would become my go to DB and replace Filemaker for me.
I too tried to use other alternatives to MS Office. I was a long time Word Perfect user and still have a difficult time with Word, but luckily I don’t have to type complex documents. I’ve been using Excel since the beginning of time though, and had a difficult time getting spreadsheets with formulas and shading to open correctly in other programs so I finally gave up and bought Office 2011.
That said, Excel has been trying to download a number of fonts for a few months ago, even when I let it, so something broke. What’s the last non-subscription version?
Diane
You can still buy a non-subscription copy of Office 2016 for Mac, list price is ~$150. Office 2019 for Mac will also be sold as a perpetual license.
Speaking of fonts, the size of each Office 2016 app is quite large because all the fonts, clip art, dictionaries, etc. are replicated in each rather than stored in a single shared location. Word is 2.19GB, Outlook 2GB, Excel is 1.72GB, PowerPoint is 1.59GB.
Wow! Good thing I only use Word and Excel.
Can you still use classic menus on the newer versions? I hate that ribbon thing with a passion.
Diane
I guess? There are certainly View, Insert, Format, etc. menus and I’m not aware of anything that can only be accessed by a ribbon.
Is ms office 2008 or 2011 compatible with high sierra?
Both are. I’m still using Word 2008, but the problem was that the program (and installer) was on an optical disk, and none of my recent Macs have optical disk readers. So I used EasyFind to find every file and folder with either “Microsoft” or “Office” in it’s name on my oldest Mac which had Office installed, and I carefully moved every folder and file that I found to my new Mac and installed them in exactly the same places. It was a bit of a pain, but it worked perfectly.
I’m afraid that none of the OpenOffice-based siblings (Libre Office, Apache OpenOffice, and NeoOffice) will ever be a suitable replacement for power users of Microsoft Office. I only use MS Word myself, but the OpenOffice programs don’t offer compatibility with MS Office macros, MS Office file sharing, and many of MS Office’s advanced features.
Also, Microsoft went out of their way to ensure that Office files shared across platforms will render perfectly. They even went so far as to include a ton of fonts with Office so that, if you stick to those fonts, font metrics will be identical. (They often aren’t across platforms.) The OpenOffice programs don’t go to such lengths to make sure that files render perfectly across platforms. MS Word even includes a compatibility wizard to help you to make sure your files will render perfectly across platforms.
This is a problem we face a lot in scientific presentations. Equations in PowerPoint will render differently depending on platform. So while everything looks fine on a Mac or PC, when the presentation is run on the other platform the equations are garbled and end up full of arrows.
Keynote usually ends up displaying the equations correctly, while Mac PowerPoint fails to do so for a presentation authored on Win PowerPoint. Ironically, you need Apple to get MS to be compatible with itself.
Sometimes people then revert to saving as PDF and presenting that instead. But once you’re there, you might as well go LaTeX all the way. ;)
Though MS Office letterforms might render render between between platforms, tracking, kerning and especially leading can make my eyes cross. I’ve also found that if you change the type size in a Word or Excel document created in another platform things often get pretty weird. I don’t know if this is just an Office problem, or a problem with Windows in general that maybe InDesign or Acrobat compensate for on that platform.
And about the only commonly used font I hate almost as much as Comic Sans, Ariel and Times New Roman is Calibri. Crimes against typography. Macs were developed to render type and typography beautifully.
Are you using the Microsoft-included fonts exclusively? Are you using the Compatibility Wizard to help ensure cross-platform compatibility?
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