If you regularly use Microsoft Office on Mac, then you must already be familiar with the frequent bugs and feature limitations that dampen the experience. It’s just not a polished product! The real bummer is that things aren’t going to get better any time soon. On the contrary, Microsoft is further alienating the Mac users.
RIP Office for Mac 2011
In an announcement on its official support page, Microsoft has confirmed that they won’t be supporting Office for Mac 2011 on macOS High Sierra. “Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Lync have not been tested on macOS 10.13 High Sierra, and no formal support for this configuration will be provided.”
It must be noted that the above statement doesn’t confirm whether Office for Mac 2011 won’t run with macOS High Sierra at all. But even if it does, you can expect plenty of compatibility issues. The official announcement clearly states ‘All applications in the Office for Mac 2011 suite are reaching the end of support on October 10th, 2017. As a reminder, after that date, there will be no new security updates, non-security updates, free or paid assisted support options or technical content updates.’
What About Office 2016?
The good news is that the 2016 version of Office for Mac will be compatible with macOS High Sierra, but the bad news is that it might encounter some issues as well. Microsoft’s statement notes ‘Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote will install and run on 10.13. Not all Office functionality may be available, and you may encounter stability problems where apps unexpectedly quit.’ Damn!
The Way Forward
So 2011 version won’t work, and the 2016 variant won’t work properly. Then what to do? How to use office documents on Mac? Well, you have these three options:
Don’t update to macOS High Sierra
Yes, you won’t get the latest features but to be honest, it’s not a big upgrade for Sierra, and you won’t miss out on much.
Switch to Apple Apps
Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are Apple’s version of Word, Excel and PowerPoint respectively. There aren’t same but are similar enough. You also get the option of opening and exporting office files will these apps. And yes, all these apps are free!
Take Office 365 for Mac subscription
Yes, we know that you effectively get Microsoft Office 2016 only with Office 365, but this is a good option for people who are currently using 2011 version. Office 2016 for Home (without Outlook) comes at a one-time cost of Rs. 6,900 and Business edition ((with Outlook) is Rs. 21,900. On the other hand, the monthly subscription fees start as low as Rs. 360 for single use and Rs. 460 for up to Macs (with Outlook and One Drive storage).
None of the above is a perfect solution, we know! The truth is we may never get a perfect solution. Microsoft is focused on improving the Office experience on PCs instead of Macs, and we can’t really blame them. Unless we train ourselves to use the work around of Apple’s apps, we will have to live with whatever Microsoft deems enough for keeping the Office for Mac ship afloat. It’s just the way it is!