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Microsoft Office 2008 and High Sierra

Bart H

Bart H

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 25, 2012
70
7
Central Virginia
I have a 2010 iMac running Office 2008 with Sierra and am getting ready to buy a new iMac.

An Apple s/w tech told me that Office 2008 is not compatible with HS and one option is to get a license for Office 365 for Mac.

Is this the case, and what might be my other options for word processing?

Thanks,
Bart
 
Yep that's the case with Office 2008. Even 2011 may have issues.

You'll get Pages for free with a new Mac/iOS purchase (tied to your Apple ID) so you could use that and export to docx if necessary. Or you could acquire a copy of Office 2016, which is identical to 365 except it's stand alone rather than subscription.
 
keysofanxiety said:
Yep that's the case with Office 2008. Even 2011 may have issues.

You'll get Pages for free with a new Mac/iOS purchase (tied to your Apple ID) so you could use that and export to docx if necessary. Or you could acquire a copy of Office 2016, which is identical to 365 except it's stand alone rather than subscription.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1509636160][/doublepost]Thanks very much!

Sounds like I should not update to HS on my old iMac before deciding on a new word processor, right?
 
keysofanxiety said:
Or you could acquire a copy of Office 2016, which is identical to 365 except it's stand alone rather than subscription.
Click to expand...

You get no upgrade pricing. The current version Office 2016 is about to be replaced.

Bart, do you need just a writing app or do you frequently need to open and share .docx files with Word users?

Nisus Writer Pro - Powerful Word Processor for macOS

https://www.nisus.com/pro/

You might find this article helpful: http://targuman.org/blog/2011/06/03/nisus-writer-pro-2-0-hebrew-word-processing/


Write With Power - Mellel

https://www.mellel.com/mellel/


Literature and Latte - Scrivener Writing Software | macOS | Windows | iOS

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php


Storyist - for Mac

http://storyist.com/mac/


Storyist & Scrivener, are designed for writing books.


Home | LibreOffice - Free Office Suite - Fun Project - Fantastic People

https://www.libreoffice.org/


LibreOffice Writer in App Store


Google Docs is free for anyone with a Google account to use.

The biggest issue is that you can really only make the most of Docs when you’re connected to the internet.
 
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keysofanxiety said:
Yep that's the case with Office 2008. Even 2011 may have issues.
Click to expand...

No one using MS Office 2011 has reported any issues with HS either .0 or .1. But, MS is not supporting it anymore, so there will be no more maintenance updates. The last update, in Sept., brought it to V 14.7.7.

I switched to MS Office 2116 about 6 months ago due to the support issue.

Lou
 
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I had some really minor issues with Office 2011. For example I couldn’t always close Excel after first launch using the red window button. I had to use the menu. Like I said, really minor, but still a bit annoying.

I too switched to 2016 last month.
 
This is annoying. In my opinion, Word 2008 was the last decent version of Word for the Mac. The formatting pallette is much superior to the Windows-derived ribbon.
Nisus Writer Pro is a very good alternative, with just a few flaws: clunky on tables; no split screen for the same document; etc. Worst, even if I save a document in .DOC format, when I send it to someone else their system will see it as RTF and double clicking will open it in Text Editor, not Word. I generally write in Nisus, but then use Word to save it as .DOCX before sending it.
Does anyone know why High Sierra breaks Office 2008? It has been working fine in Sierra.
 
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Well, it alway depends on what you're doing with it and what your needs are. I for myself use iWork which is a bit basic and less feature rich. Pages and Keynote are quite alright. Only numbers is a bit of a joke compared to Excel. I tried Office 2011 and had lots of issues with it. Office 2016 always has been very slow for me when working with large documents. The interface also doesn't play well on an 11" MacBook Air...

Little fun fact aside: You can also run Office 2010 in wine which acts way faster than the "native" Mac version.

dianeoforegon already gave you a few options and I would only repeat myself. But give LibreOffice (please not the App Store Version, which is just a link to the webpage) and iWork a shot. Maybe they fulfil your needs already.
 
Whether to acquire the new version of MS office is more complex in my opinion. If the OP has an iPad Pro larger than 9.7 they will need the subscription if they want to work with Word on their iPad too. If the OP has more than one computer and/or family members, they will need s subscription. Also Office 2008 is 32 bit and will not run on future versions of MacOS beyond Mojave.
 
smayer97 said:
Can anyone actually describe what happens if you try to run MS Office on HS?
Click to expand...
I'm wondering this too, if you have a mac with El Cap that runs MS office 2008 and you upgrade it to High Sierra, will office still work?
 
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^^^^And neither one are getting security updates. MS has dropped all support.

Lou
 
chscag said:
Both Office 2008 and Office 2011 still function in Mojave. But take note that neither one will work past Mojave since both are 32 Bit.
Click to expand...

I don't know if 2008 will run but Office 2011 is rock solid on High Sierra 10.13.6. I have eight different types of macs all running 10.13.6 and all running our 4M dollar marketing company on Office 2011. I'm looking into Office 2016 just for the security updates and will run on a test computer a few weeks to see if I want to switch. I absolutely will not pay a monthly or annual subscription to Micro$oft to use their Office products. I'd use free Open Office before I would do this.
 
^^^^Office 2016 is now a dead end, it will have security releases into 2020, but no new features added. I own a perpetual license (one user only), and will be using it on my MBA. Office 2019 has been released, it is the current version, and I was able to pick up a perpetual license, again only one user, for $70 bux. A couple of minor issues have been cleaned up, but nothing major yet.

Lou
 
My wife, for visual reasons, still uses 2008. She tried 2011 and couldn't work with it. All of these companies are losing sight that people with visual issues use computers and they need to make some accommodation for them. Make it theme or something but give people the ability to make the system usable.
 
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