Apple + Recommended + Software & Apps. Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Not Supported on macOS High Sierra. Posted on September 25th, 2017 by Kirk McElhearn macOS High Sierra is due to be released to the general public today, and it’s a good idea to prepare your Mac before upgrading.
Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 applications shown on Mac OS X Snow Leopard | |
Developer(s) | Microsoft |
---|---|
Initial release | October 26, 2010; 9 years ago |
Stable release | |
Operating system | Mac OS X 10.5.8 to macOS 10.14.6 |
Type | Office suite |
License | |
Website | www.microsoft.com/mac/ |
Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 is a version of the Microsoft Officeproductivity suite for Mac OS X. It is the successor to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac and is comparable to Office 2010 for Windows. Office 2011 was followed by Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac released on September 22, 2015, requiring a Mac with an x64 Intel processor and OS X Yosemite or later.
Microsoft Office 2011 includes more robust enterprise support and greater feature parity with the Windows edition. Its interface is now more similar to Office 2007 and 2010 for Windows, with the addition of the ribbon. Support for Visual Basic for Applications macros has returned after having been dropped in Office 2008.[4][5] Purchasing the Home Premium version of Office for Mac will not allow telephone support automatically to query any problems with the VBA interface. There are however, apparently, according to Microsoft Helpdesk, some third party applications that can address problems with the VBA interface with Office for Mac.[citation needed] In addition, Office 2011 supports online collaboration tools such as OneDrive and Office Web Apps, allowing Mac and Windows users to simultaneously edit documents over the web. It also includes limited support for Apple's high-density Retina Displays, allowing the display of sharp text and images, although most icons within applications themselves are not optimized for this.
A new version of Microsoft Outlook, written using Mac OS X's Cocoa API, returns to the Mac for the first time since 2001 and has full support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.[6] It replaces Entourage, which was included in Office 2001, X, 2004 and 2008 for Mac.[7]
Office for Mac 2011 has a number of limitations compared to Office 2010 for Windows. It does not support ActiveX controls,[8] or OpenDocument Format.[9][10] It also cannot handle attachments in Rich Text Format e-mail messages sent from Outlook for Windows, which are delivered as winmail.dat attachments.[citation needed] It also has several human language limitations, such as lack of support for right-to-left languages such as Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew [11] and automatic language detection. [12]
Microsoft does not support CalDAV and CardDAV in Outlook, so there is no way to sync directly Outlook through iCloud. Outlook also does not allow the user to disable Cached Exchange Mode, unlike the Windows version, and it is therefore not possible to connect to an Exchange Server without downloading a local cache of mail and calendar data. [13]
Office for Mac 2011 also has a shorter lifecycle than Office 2010, with support phasing out on October 10, 2017.[14] As 32-bit software, it will not run on macOS Catalina, released in 2019.[15]
Two editions are available to the general public. Home & Student provides Word, Excel and PowerPoint, while Home & Business adds Outlook and increased support.[16]Microsoft Messenger 8 is included with both editions, and Microsoft Communicator for Mac 2011, which communicates with Microsoft Lync Server, is available only to volume licensing customers.[17] Office 2011 requires an Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later.[18]
Applications and services | Home & Student | Home & Business | Academic | Standard |
---|---|---|---|---|
Word | Included | Included | Included | Included |
PowerPoint | Included | Included | Included | Included |
Excel | Included | Included | Included | Included |
Outlook | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
Communicator or Lync | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
Office Web Apps | Included | Included | Included | Included |
Remote Desktop Connection | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
Information Rights Management | Included | Included | Included | Included |
Windows SharePoint Services Support | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
Technical support | 90 days | 1 year | 90 days | ? |
The Home & Student edition is available in a single license for one computer and a family pack for three computers. The Home & Business edition is available in a single license for one computer and a multi-pack for two computers. The Standard edition is only available through Volume Licensing.[19] The Academic edition was created for higher education students, staff and faculty, and includes one installation.[20] Office for Mac is also available as part of Microsoft's Office 365 subscription programme.
Microsoft announced Office 2011 in 2009.[21] There were 6 beta versions released:
Access to beta versions was by invitation only,[23] although leaked copies were circulated among Mac file sharing websites.[24]
The final version was released to manufacturing on September 10, 2010,[25] was available to volume license customers a day later,[26] and made available to the general public on October 26, 2010.[27] Service Pack 1 was released on April 12, 2011.[28]
It’s almost become a tradition; one that we wish we didn’t have to put up with. It seems with each new version of the Mac operating system, there are some features that just don’t seem to work the way they used to. The tradition lives on with macOS High Sierra, so we’re gathering a list of what High Sierra broke and how to fix it (when you can).
Drive Encryption Can Change Formatting
Encrypting an entire drive to add a level of security has been an easy task in the Mac OS ever since FileVault 2 was released as part of OS X Lion. Full disk encryption has been a boon for Mac users who worry about their personal data being easily accessible on their Macs or external drives. This is especially true for portable Mac users, who need to worry about their Macs being lost or stolen.
macOS High Sierra continues to support full disk encryption, but Mike Bombich, who created Carbon Copy Cloner, has verified a bug in High Sierra that will cause an external drive to have its format changed from HFS+ to APFS when the drive is encrypted in High Sierra.
Enabling encryption on a drive should not alter the underlying drive format. If the drive was HFS+ (Hierarchical File System) before you chose to encrypt it, it should remain an HFS+ drive afterwards. The same is true for APFS (Apple File System) formatted drives; choosing the encryption option shouldn’t change the APFS format of the drive.
Related:A Note On High Sierra Compatibility with Third Party SSDs
(Encrypting an external drive can lead to the drive being converted to an APFS volume.)Under certain conditions, encrypting a drive will modify the format to APFS without the user being aware of the changes.
The specific conditions are:
If these two conditions are met, and you select the option to encrypt the drive, by right-clicking the drive icon and selecting Encrypt from the popup menu, the drive will be converted to APFS format and then encrypted.
Even though the drive has been converted to APFS and encrypted, it will continue to work just fine with your Mac running macOS High Sierra. The problem comes about should you ever connect the drive to a Mac running an earlier version of the Mac operating system, or if you boot your Mac to an earlier version of the OS. In either case, the external drive won’t be recognizable by the older operating system.
Our recommendation is not to encrypt your external drive, unless converting to APFS is acceptable to you, and you have no plans to use the drive with earlier versions of the Mac operating system.
Being Logged Out Randomly
If you find yourself occasionally being logged out of your Mac after you upgraded to macOS High Sierra, you can stop worrying; your Mac isn’t possessed. Instead, the upgrade process may have enabled two security options that you may not have been using before.
To correct the phantom logouts, launch System Preferences, either by clicking on its Dock icon, or by selecting System Preferences from the Apple menu.
In the System Preferences window, select the Security & Privacy preference pane.
From the Security & Privacy preference pane, click the Lock icon and enter your administrator credentials. Once the padlock is unlocked, click on the Advanced button.
Either remove the checkmark from “Log out after xx minutes of inactivity” or set the time frame to a longer period to meet your needs. Click the OK button when done.
The second security issue that may be causing the problem is also located in the Security & Privacy preference pane. Select the General tab.
The item: “Require password xx minutes after sleep or screen saver begins” may also be checked. You can remove the checkmark, or modify the amount of time that needs to pass before the screen saver kicks in to better fit your needs. My own preference is to leave this security feature in place, and just adjust the time as needed.
While you’re at it, you may want to jump over to the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane to adjust the time for when the screen saver starts up.
(Be sure to check the General tab of the Security & Privacy preferences for password requirements to wake from sleep. These may have also been changed during the install.)Select the Screen Saver tab, then use the Start after: dropdown menu to select how much inactive time needs to elapse before the screen saver starts
High Sierra Battery Life is Poor
Another issue that seems to be common is portable Mac battery life being adversely affected after an upgrade to High Sierra. So far, it seems that macOS High Sierra isn’t the culprit; instead, there are a few apps that may need to be updated to make better use of the battery.
Launch Activity Monitor, located at /Applications/ Utilities.
In the Activity Monitor window, select the Energy tab.
(Activity Monitor’s Energy tab can help you find apps gulping down the power from your battery.)In the resulting display, look for apps that are marked as preventing sleep, or are listed as having a high energy impact. Contact the app developer to see if there are updates available for the app to make it perform better with macOS High Sierra.
Unable to Wake From Sleep
I’m not sure what it is about sleep, but the Mac seems to always have issues with sleep after a system upgrade. There have been reports of Macs not being able to wake from sleep after upgrading to High Sierra.
Unrelated, but with the same solution, is a flickering of the display, especially when the Safari browser is open.
You can fix both issues by resetting the NVRAM and then resetting the SMC.
You can find detailed instructions on how to perform these resets in the article:
How to Reset NVRAM, PRAM, SMC on your Mac.
Office 2011 Crashes
If you’re using Office 2011 for the Mac with macOS High Sierra, you’re not having any issues, you’re having occasional crashes, or Office simply refuses to launch at all.
That about covers most of the possibilities. The problem is Microsoft decided not to support Office 11 under macOS High Sierra, meaning they haven’t tested the apps nor are they going to offer any updates to correct any issues. Essentially, Office 2011 is on its own. If it works for you, wonderful, but if you have any issues, it may be time to consider a replacement.
Of course, software apps do get old, and Office 11 has been around for a long time, in software years. If you have a specific need for Microsoft Office, the Office 2016 for Mac version works fine and is fully supported under macOS High Sierra.
If you just need a Word or Excel work-alike that you can use to share files with others, there are a few options available. If you have a suggestion that you know works with High Sierra, please leave a note in the Comments, below.
Mail Stops Notifying You of New Mail
Have you noticed that Mail is no longer alerting you of new incoming messages via the Notifications center? If you’re used to seeing a banner pop up in the top right corner of your Mac’s display with a brief description of a new piece of mail whenever new mail arrives, you may have noticed the banners stopped once you installed High Sierra.
This bug doesn’t seem to affect everyone, but it happens often enough that Apple should be able to fix the issue in a subsequent update of High Sierra.
But you don’t need to wait for Apple; you can fix the issue yourself by opening System Preferences and selecting Notifications.
Highlight Mail in the Notifications window sidebar, and then select None as the Mail alert style. Wait a moment, then set the notifications style back to Banners or Alerts, whichever you prefer.
Close the Notifications preference pane.
(The Notifications center may need its mail handling alert style reset to work properly after installing High Sierra.)Launch Mail if it isn’t already running. Mail notifications should now work correctly.
Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator Issues
Adobe Photoshop has a minor issue with High Sierra that prevents the Photoshop window from expanding to full screen whenever the Dock is shown.
Adobe has created a Photoshop plug-in file that can rectify the problem. You’ll find instructions on how to download and install the plug-in at the Adobe Help website.
Adobe Illustrator is experiencing some issues with High Sierra; specifically, the licensing system seems to be broken when the startup drive uses the APFS file system. The result is Illustrator may not launch, or there will be an error message about license problems.
Adobe recommends not upgrading to High Sierra, or not converting to the APFS file system at this time.
There’s an additional issue with Illustrator on macOS High Sierra that results in the wrong color settings being applied; specifically, Emulate Adobe Illustrator 6 becomes the default color setting and is applied to any document you open or new document you create.
The workaround is to manually change the color settings before working with any document.
Select Edit, Color Settings, and then choose the desired settings for the document.
Click OK.
Open the document you wish to work on.
You’ll need to repeat these steps each time you launch Illustrator, or before you open a document that uses a different color space.
Other High Sierra Problems and Fixes
macOS High Sierra is still relatively new, and I suspect there will be quite a few additional issues that will crop up. If you encounter any problems with using High Sierra, please feel free to share with our readers by leaving a comment.
If you’re having High Sierra install issues, you can leave a comment in the Rocket Yard guide: Common Problems During and After macOS High Sierra Installation.
[Update] Stay tuned for issues that you might encounter when running macOS Mojave.