High Sierra leaves Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 behind, 2016 edition needs updating

AppleInsider · June 13, 2017 4:21PM

A support document published by Microsoft, and some AppleInsider testing, shows that while the newer versions of the office productivity suite will mostly work with High Sierra now, the current version does not -- and older versions are getting left behind.

In the support document, published shortly after the reveal of High Sierra, Microsoft declares that while the Office 2016 suite of applications from unreleased version 15.35 and later do work, users will still have to endure problems while waiting for a future update. According to Microsoft, "not all Office functionality may be available" and stability problems may manifest where "apps unexpectedly quit."

Without delving into specific reasons why, Microsoft strongly recommends that users back up existing data before trying the software. The company is requesting that users send feedback if they choose to test High Sierra and Microsoft Office products.

Versions 15.34 -- the current version -- and earlier are not supported on High Sierra, and users may not be able to launch the apps at all, according to Microsoft. The 15.34 update was released on May 16

Microsoft notes in the same memorandum that Office for Mac 2011 "have not been tested" and "no formal support for this configuration will be provided." Office for Mac 2011 will also cease all support from Microsoft on October 10, 2017 and no further updates in any form will be provided after that date.

AppleInsider tested the 15.34 version and found that they appear to launch and run for a period of time, but with notably slower speeds across the board. Furthermore, the apps quit unexpectedly fairly often during use.

The same issues manifested in a Mac with High Sierra that was not migrated to APFS, eliminating that as a primary source of the errors and crashing.

The latest Office for Mac 2011 from April, version 14.7.3, was examined, and was found to be in a worse state following the High Sierra update. Crashing was even more frequent than in the Office for Mac 2016, not even accounting for a number of other user interface oddities spanning the entire suite. A standard troubleshooting step for Microsoft Office applications is to uninstall and reinstall the suite. Neither the 2011 nor the 2016 versions were any better after a complete delete and reinstall.

Both the 2011 and 2016 versions of Office were usable prior to the High Sierra update. AppleInsider's testing found the 2016 suite to to be functional for the cautious under 15.34, and 2011 to be not reliable at all under High Sierra.

randominternetperson · June 13, 2017 5:00PM

I wonder how much of this because there are just plenty of bugs that need to be worked out of High Sierra versus it being a major change that will require developers to update their apps. I hope it's the former. I have plenty of old apps that still work fine on Sierra that I have no particular interest in upgrading.

Grimzahn · June 13, 2017 5:05PM

The problem lies with Microsoft and their Xamarin junk that is used as middleware layer. Propper written native apps wont have any issues.

Mike Wuerthele · June 13, 2017 5:10PM

randominternetperson said:

I wonder how much of this because there are just plenty of bugs that need to be worked out of High Sierra versus it being a major change that will require developers to update their apps. I hope it's the former. I have plenty of old apps that still work fine on Sierra that I have no particular interest in upgrading.

While I can't speak to Grimzahn's Xamarin suggestion, the way this is going to work is the way it's always worked. If you adhere to Apple's guidelines, you're set for a while.

If you play fast and loose, like MS, then you're going to have a hard time.

machiavelli92 · June 13, 2017 5:17PM

Increasingly hard to find people who still use Office.

randominternetperson · June 13, 2017 5:28PM

machiavelli92 said:

Increasingly hard to find people who still use Office.

Seriously? I would say exactly the opposite. My daughter took a computer science class and the professor expected the kids to turn their programs in as Word documents. I suggested that she should probably just turn in text files (to avoid the possibility of autocorrect or other nonsense) and she said he specifically said he wanted them as Word. Now that's an extreme example, but, in my experience, from K-12 through to business, the expected document formats are Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Maybe there is some niche that can get by on Google docs or some such alternative, but that's a niche.

bkkcanuck · June 13, 2017 5:30PM

Mike Wuerthele said:

randominternetperson said:

I wonder how much of this because there are just plenty of bugs that need to be worked out of High Sierra versus it being a major change that will require developers to update their apps. I hope it's the former. I have plenty of old apps that still work fine on Sierra that I have no particular interest in upgrading.

While I can't speak to Grimzahn's Xamarin suggestion, the way this is going to work is the way it's always worked. If you adhere to Apple's guidelines, you're set for a while.

If you play fast and loose, like MS, then you're going to have a hard time.

I remember that Office 2008 often had to be patched on new OS releases (twice).... I still had a working copy, but decided to retire it for Pages/Numbers and Libre Office (for some documents from a customer). Getting a new license of Office -- was just not worth it....

williamh · June 13, 2017 5:31PM

machiavelli92 said:

Increasingly hard to find people who still use Office.

You must have trouble finding people. MS Office is ubiquitous.

bkkcanuck · June 13, 2017 5:32PM

randominternetperson said:

machiavelli92 said:

Increasingly hard to find people who still use Office.

Seriously? I would say exactly the opposite. My daughter took a computer science class and the professor expected the kids to turn their programs in as Word documents. I suggested that she should probably just turn in text files (to avoid the possibility of autocorrect or other nonsense) and she said he specifically said he wanted them as Word. Now that's an extreme example, but, in my experience, from K-12 through to business, the expected document formats are Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Maybe there is some niche that can get by on Google docs or some such alternative, but that's a niche.

I always publish my documents as PDFs (which is internally supported on macOS).... though when I send them I don't expect them to be modified. The professor should accept PDFs IMHO -- since it is the most widely supported standard for publishing documents - and he should not need to edit them.

rob53 · June 13, 2017 5:56PM

randominternetperson said:

machiavelli92 said:

Increasingly hard to find people who still use Office.

Seriously? I would say exactly the opposite. My daughter took a computer science class and the professor expected the kids to turn their programs in as Word documents. I suggested that she should probably just turn in text files (to avoid the possibility of autocorrect or other nonsense) and she said he specifically said he wanted them as Word. Now that's an extreme example, but, in my experience, from K-12 through to business, the expected document formats are Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Maybe there is some niche that can get by on Google docs or some such alternative, but that's a niche.

The reason this is happening is because the school's administrators are (forced to) use Microsoft products because all the infrastructure systems require it. Administrators could care less about the students as long as they get paid. Word is absolutely a stupid way to submit any kind of program submission. Unformatted text (using something like BBEdit) has always been the best way to submit coding since it isn't screwed up my formatting used in any kind of page layout system. I can't see anyone using Pages to submit programs to a professor. Microsoft products are never the best products in any of the areas they sell in but that never matters because corporations and our silly government has too much invested in Microsoft to change for anything better.

As for Microsoft having issues with they crappy software running under any Apple OS, it's always been this way and will never improve. People forced to use Microsoft Office products will just have to wait until Microsoft figures things out and delivers another half-a** product. Things never change with Microsoft no matter who's in charge.

disclaimer: I've had to fight Microsoft since the early 90's and the current issue is typical.

lkrupp · June 13, 2017 6:02PM

randominternetperson said:

I wonder how much of this because there are just plenty of bugs that need to be worked out of High Sierra versus it being a major change that will require developers to update their apps. I hope it's the former. I have plenty of old apps that still work fine on Sierra that I have no particular interest in upgrading.

Here we go again. Apple is not allowed to update or upgrade its operating system unless it remains compatible with third party software? That’s not how it works.

JimVan · June 13, 2017 6:33PM

bkkcanuck said:

I always publish my documents as PDFs (which is internally supported on macOS).... though when I send them I don't expect them to be modified. The professor should accept PDFs IMHO -- since it is the most widely supported standard for publishing documents - and he should not need to edit them.

As a college professor, it's my job to edit student writing. When I have to grade 500 pages of student papers in less than a week at the end of a semester, inserting comments in PDFs is abjectly inefficient. MS Word and insert comments using TextExpander and voice dictation is the most effective way for me to be productive.

macky the macky · June 13, 2017 6:44PM

JimVan said:
As a college professor, it's my job to edit student writing. When I have to grade 500 pages of student papers in less than a week at the end of a semester, inserting comments in PDFs is abjectly inefficient. MS Word and insert comments using TextExpander and voice dictation is the most effective way for me to be productive.

Next year you will discover the joy and convenience of pencil editing a PDF file on an iPad Pro and be all over MS Word...

randominternetperson · June 13, 2017 6:57PM

lkrupp said:

randominternetperson said:

I wonder how much of this because there are just plenty of bugs that need to be worked out of High Sierra versus it being a major change that will require developers to update their apps. I hope it's the former. I have plenty of old apps that still work fine on Sierra that I have no particular interest in upgrading.

Here we go again. Apple is not allowed to update or upgrade its operating system unless it remains compatible with third party software? That’s not how it works.

Don't put words in my mouth. Should Apple obsess about ensuring every bit of legacy software works on every future version of Mac OS? Of course not. On the other hand, it is a bummer as a consumer when legacy software stops working. If it's just my old copy of Office 2008 that stops working in High Sierra, I can live with that. If half the programs I try to run give me errors after I upgrade to HS, that won't give me a very positive experience. I think Apple does an excellent job on backwards compatibility myself, and I hope that history continues this time around.

rob53 · June 13, 2017 7:04PM

JimVan said:

bkkcanuck said:

I always publish my documents as PDFs (which is internally supported on macOS).... though when I send them I don't expect them to be modified. The professor should accept PDFs IMHO -- since it is the most widely supported standard for publishing documents - and he should not need to edit them.

As a college professor, it's my job to edit student writing. When I have to grade 500 pages of student papers in less than a week at the end of a semester, inserting comments in PDFs is abjectly inefficient. MS Word and insert comments using TextExpander and voice dictation is the most effective way for me to be productive.

I didn't realize a college professor edits student writings, you should only be making comments. It's the student's writing not yours.

blastdoor · June 13, 2017 7:15PM

Presumably Microsoft will get around to updating Office 2016. I'll have to wait to upgrade to High Sierra until that happens.

The thing that sucks for me about losing Office 2011 is that Office 2016 never gained support for MathType from Design Science.

larryjw · June 13, 2017 7:25PM

rob53 said:

JimVan said:

bkkcanuck said:

I always publish my documents as PDFs (which is internally supported on macOS).... though when I send them I don't expect them to be modified. The professor should accept PDFs IMHO -- since it is the most widely supported standard for publishing documents - and he should not need to edit them.

As a college professor, it's my job to edit student writing. When I have to grade 500 pages of student papers in less than a week at the end of a semester, inserting comments in PDFs is abjectly inefficient. MS Word and insert comments using TextExpander and voice dictation is the most effective way for me to be productive.

I didn't realize a college professor edits student writings, you should only be making comments. It's the student's writing not yours.

You think you might be a trifling arrogant telling a college professor how to teach?

The college professor is right, at least in my limited experience, on the difficulty of editing PDFs. iOS 11 should help. I'm looking forward to the time when an iPad can be used as an input device to a Mac.

techaccident · June 13, 2017 7:33PM

randominternetperson said:
Seriously? I would say exactly the opposite. My daughter took a computer science class and the professor expected the kids to turn their programs in as Word documents. ...Maybe there is some niche that can get by on Google docs or some such alternative, but that's a niche.

Another data point: my youngest just graduated high school, oldest in college. Both in private schools where Office docs are not permitted - it's 100% Google docs, unless output is something non-doc like video, illustrations or physical objects. The only exception is the Adobe suite.

sflocal · June 13, 2017 7:35PM

machiavelli92 said:

Increasingly hard to find people who still use Office.

And where do you work? Every shop I go to uses Office. It's still the deFacto standard office suite used by businesses. Sure, I see folks use GoogleDocs here and there, but it's more because it's free than it actually being any good.

Microsoft made huge strides in Office365 on the Mac. It's on par with the Windows version finally.

Office 2011 was horrible in every way. I purchased it back in the day to get away from Windows, but couldn't wean off of it because of Office. Now, with Office365 on the Mac and stable, I rarely have to ever get into Windows. Microsoft is finally opening its eyes on non-windows systems like MacOS and iOS.

sflocal · June 13, 2017 7:45PM

rob53 said:

randominternetperson said:

machiavelli92 said:

Increasingly hard to find people who still use Office.

Seriously? I would say exactly the opposite. My daughter took a computer science class and the professor expected the kids to turn their programs in as Word documents. I suggested that she should probably just turn in text files (to avoid the possibility of autocorrect or other nonsense) and she said he specifically said he wanted them as Word. Now that's an extreme example, but, in my experience, from K-12 through to business, the expected document formats are Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Maybe there is some niche that can get by on Google docs or some such alternative, but that's a niche.

The reason this is happening is because the school's administrators are (forced to) use Microsoft products because all the infrastructure systems require it. Administrators could care less about the students as long as they get paid. Word is absolutely a stupid way to submit any kind of program submission. Unformatted text (using something like BBEdit) has always been the best way to submit coding since it isn't screwed up my formatting used in any kind of page layout system. I can't see anyone using Pages to submit programs to a professor. Microsoft products are never the best products in any of the areas they sell in but that never matters because corporations and our silly government has too much invested in Microsoft to change for anything better.

As for Microsoft having issues with they crappy software running under any Apple OS, it's always been this way and will never improve. People forced to use Microsoft Office products will just have to wait until Microsoft figures things out and delivers another half-a** product. Things never change with Microsoft no matter who's in charge.

disclaimer: I've had to fight Microsoft since the early 90's and the current issue is typical.

Have you even used Office365 on MacOS? Microsoft of today is NOT what it was under Bill Gates and MonkeyBoy Ballmer so let go of the 90's hate.

I've been using it since it came out years ago. Office365 of MacOS is finally on the same level as its Windows counterpart. It's stable, it runs great and thankfully, they keep it updated continuously. It's not the "crappy software" running on MacOS. I'll say that Office 2011 was a steaming pile of horse manure which is was one of the reasons I continued to use Office for Windows. Now, that's all history. When I receive documents created in other suites, I cringe at it. They just don't polish their apps as nicely as Office.

dougd · June 13, 2017 7:58PM

Don't upgrade to High Sierra !

High Sierra leaves Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 behind, 2016 edition needs updating

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