Microsoft Office 365 not working since update to Catalina

I can't be sure, but it sounds like your Office apps are a 32 bit version. Or that if they are a recent 64 bit version, they are not registered (activated) with Microsoft. That can cause what you describe. In other words, you can open files, but can not make any changes to them. I recommend you visit Microsoft's site where you can find directions to "activate" your Office apps. This is necessary whenever a person transfers files, etc. to a different computer. If you are already registered with Microsoft, the computer you are using must also be registered to activate the apps.

Last, if you do have the older 32 bit apps and don't know what to do, I offer the following for your consideration. I would like to offer several important points for you and any of our other viewers concerning the ‘problems’ with Microsoft Office after an OS upgrade to Catalina, if that is what has occurred.

·      First, Apple has regularly informed all of us for a couple of years that at some point our old 32 bit programs would no longer work with a future OS upgrade. That has finally occurred as we have been told it would. This appears to be the case with you. The message announcements were received when an older 32 bit program was opened.

·      Any other old 32 bit programs you have installed will also be affected. They also will no longer work.

·      As noted, if a person wishes not to upgrade their Microsoft Office, there are several good alternatives. They are the free LibreOffice and OpenOffice apps. Additionally, your Apple OS provides three free programs which you may use as an alternative to Office, Pages, Numbers and Keynote.

·      Any of these apps can and will open your Office documents. You may also create new documents and save them as Word files, etc. when you need to share files with other people who only have Office installed.

·      You should be aware that using these other apps to open Word documents will result in formatting changes.

·      Using any of these programs does involve a learning curve as they work a bit differently, but all of them are fine programs.

If you have Microsoft Office for Mac 2016 or later, it can be upgraded at no cost. If it is an earlier version, it cannot.

·      If you decide to upgrade an older version of Office, you have options. You may elect to subscribe to any of the following:

• • Office 365 Home:         $99.99 per year or $9.99 monthly. This allows you to install Office in up to six devices. This service must be renewed yearly. You may try the service free for one month.
  • Office Personal:           $69.99 per year or $6.99 monthly. This is for installation on one device only. This service must be renewed yearly. You may try the service free for one month.
  • Office Home & Student:        $149.99 one-time purchase cost. This is a purchasefor installation on one device only and is not renewed or have a monthly fee. It does not expire.
  • The second and third options include fewer additional apps such as having no Outlook app. Check the Microsoft site for details.

·       I strongly recommend that if you elect to do the Office upgrade, you first completely remove your Old Office app and its associated bits and pieces which will be spread through several other folders. This can be done effectively with the free program AppCleaner.app. It is easy to use and doing so will avoid creating any potential conflicts. After this is done, then you may download the replacement Microsoft Office files safely.

·       Finally, and this is important, when purchasing any of these Office upgrades, you need to register your purchase on the Microsoft web site, including which device or devices the apps are installed on. This can be changed later if a device is replaced. You must do this registration or you can have problems.

In summary, Apple has warned us of the change to 64 bit operations only. It has occurred. Now, it is up to us to decide how to respond. I hope this information is helpful to you.

That is a good point, MittensPS. Microsoft does not make this easy. Or at the very least, it's confusing.

For Office 2016 and 2019, you activate the software using the standard Product Key method that's been used for years. Which looks something like this (the X's being a mix of numbers and letters).

For Office 365, you use the email address and password you used to set up your MS online account and follow these instructions. You don't have to specifically follow step one. Launch any Office app however you want. It also doesn't matter which one. Once you sign in, they're all activated. If you don't have an MS account yet, you create it in order to have a sign in activation. You must use the same email address the purchase confirmation went to.

Office 365 from the App Store is different yet again. You purchase Word, Excel or PowerPoint and with a subscription. Once paid, all three of those are active. If you want Outlook, you acquire it as an extra in-app purchase. Essentially, the same idea as buying Office 365 directly from MS as the Home and Student version without Outlook, and the more expensive Business version with.

And just to add to the confusion, while you can't use Office 365 downloads directly from MS if you purchased it through the App Store, MS allows you to use the App Store downloads if you purchased Office 365 directly from MS. This per a quote from a recent Apple Developer's Conference:

The Office 365 apps are available from the Mac App Store with a free one-month trial. The full Office 365 bundle includes six apps: Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Word, though you can download individual apps. Once the free trial is over, the subscription price for the six-app bundle is $69.99. If you already have an Office 365 subscription, you can use it.

…it wants to save to something called OneDrive stored under an ancient email address that I long ago removed from MS.

It may be old information held over from a previous version or preferences you were using.

Open Word, and then its preferences. Click on File Locations in the bottom row.

Do you see any default locations pointing OneDrive? If so, modify or remove it.

If you have the 32bit version of Word it won’t work with Catalina as its all 64bit. Microsoft are not supporting Word for Mac anymore. I have the same problem and until I find another option ie Pages or OpenOffice that’s works as well then i’m sticking with Mojave.

Hello, have you tried to quit from the activity monitor?

Also have you contacted Microsoft? since it's a Microsoft app it would be good to also see if it is something in their end.

As last resort you can uninstall and instal back

Thanks for this helpful information. I am no techi and I have no idea whether I have 32 or 64bit, but probably the former. I've loaded Catalina now so I suppose I'm stuck with it. I have a friend who uses Pages so I'll try that out. Just what I needed at the start of my last year at uni.

Thanks, I did look, but can only find adobe no microsoft. I'm going to make sure I have everything saved elsewhere and try and few things. I've had a quick look at pages, but doesn't look a patch on microsoft. Maybe I'll have to switch to microsoft again and ditch Apple. Aaaaaaah.

Microsoft are not supporting Word for Mac anymore.

Completely false. MS isn't supporting Office 2011 or older anymore. They aren't just ancient, they're 32 bit and will never be updated. Office 2016, 2019 and 365 are 64 bit.

Click the apple logo top left of your screen, select system report, scroll down to legacy software, click that and you will see all programs running 32 bit.

No one will ever find what you mean with those instructions. While holding the Option key down, click the Apple logo at the top left and choose System Information. In the left column under the Software section, click Applications. Which is all irrelevant in Catalina since there isn't a 64 bit Yes/No column anymore.

isabella60,

Do you have any third party add-ons for Office installed? Other users here have noted they prevent Office 365 from working in Catalina because they're (apparently) 32 bit. The OS starts to launch the Office 365 app you chose, but then hangs on the 32 bit extras.

If that's not the case, go to the Applications folder and put all of the Office 365 apps in the trash. Go to this Microsoft downloads page and click the link next to Office suite (without Teams). This is the latest release and that link includes all of the apps.

another thing that I saw is that users that have updated to Mojave having troubles with Microsoft apps, some users try to update via App Store and the version they have is the version from Microsoft website.

Try to give a look here: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/microsoft-office-and-the-mac-app-store-ad2293a8-f5aa-4652-ae3f-83dda906d748

might help you a little

I have a problem with MS Word, too, but the latest version of Word is 64 bit and is intended to work with Catalina. However, the message board at Microsoft is filled with complaints about the way the latest versions of Word and Catalina don't play well together.

My specific problem is that I cannot format text at all in Word. When I highlight some text, I cannot change the font or its' size, underline/bold or italicize, or highlight. Someone above suggests uninstalling/reinstalling the MS apps ( Word & Excel) - but at this moment, the explanation of how to approach each type of purchase (subscription/1-time download/ Office vs. 2019 Home & Office looks overwhelming to me.

I suspect that different versions of the Apple computers act somewhat differently. I installed the latest version of Office prior to upgrading to Catalena and had no problems. However . . . . before installing the new Office software, I first completely uninstalled my older version of Office. That means ALL of the bits and pieces of the program which reside in other various folders. To do that I use a free uninstaller program. (Some people have suggested not to do that, but I had no problem.) That way I got a good clean installation with nothing from the earlier version to cause problems. Also some earlier versions of Office also have an uninstaller. Using that should give you a clean uninstall before installing the newer software. Lastly, the new software (as mentioned above) needs to be registered on the Microsoft web site for use in a specific computer. If your computer is changes, then you need to unregister the old one and register the new one. I hope this if helpful.

Kurt, thanks. Yes, the un-install and re-install of Office 365 did the trick. What is funny though is that, before I realized it was a 64 vs 32 issue, I was on the phone with Microsoft yesterday, thinking it an Office issue, but they have not yet trained up their people to cut right to the obvious issue once the caller mentions "Catalina". The logic of where the problem was hit me after step 9 with the nice person working her way through their help manual. Old fogies, like myself, might be forgiven for missing the essential at first glance, panicked about not accessing our documents, but the MS help desk should be a tad more clued in.

My Office for Mac stopped working when I upgraded to Catalina. I was able to download Drive free from the Office website and the latest apps for Word and Excel. Word is working ok but excel will allow me to open and change documents but only up to 5mb which is no good at all. Now I have download the free Appache Open Office which works a treat. I might stick with this.

I think I'm having the same problem. I have a purchased and installed version of all the Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). Now that I've updated to Catalina, my Mac will not let me use the programs. It says they need to be updated and sends me to the App store. When I arrive at the App store, the option is to purchase Office 365 which I do not want to do since I've already paid for the Microsoft software. This does not seem like a question for Microsoft, since it's Apple's operating update which has caused the issue. How do I use my software without paying for 365?