Compatibility with Microscoft Office for MAC

Microsoft only supports current versions of Microsoft 365, or Office 2021 for Mac on Monterey because prior Office suites are either 32-bit or retired from support. You will need to budget for new Microsoft licensing and updated applications on Monterey.

Your existing MS Office documents on High Sierra are portable to Monterey and openable in Microsoft applications, or third-party applications designed to open them.

Some alternatives to MS Office on Mac (my take on MS Office document compatibility):

• Softmaker's Office -- actually still supported on High Sierra
• LibreOffice Suite -- (free MS Office clone with documentation and learning curve). Do not even consider OpenOffice.

Apple's Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are not MS Office application clones, though may open MS Office documents via best effort translation into Apple's document formats. That may cause issues when sharing this content with those still using MS Office on Mac and Windows.

frhmom wrote:

I have a Macbook Pro mid 2015 using High Sierra OS. If I update to Monterrey, will I still be able to use Microsoft Office for Mac and will all of my Word & Excel documents still be available?

For your third party app—

if in doubt search the developers website or contact their: Support/Help/FAQ/Known issues/compatibility/Updates

Microsoft Corporation/Customer service

1 (800) 642-7676

Microsoft support is very responsive and helpful.

https://support.microsoft.com

Ask the Microsoft Community

https://answers.microsoft.com/

https://roaringapps.com/apps

frhmom wrote:

Thank you. I have Office for Mac 2008 updated to 12.3.6. I do not know how many bits it is.

It is 32 bit. It will not run on Monterey. You need to upgrade your Microsoft Office app to a currect version.

Your documents will still be compatible.

Office 2008 is a particular challenge if you're also using Entourage. The only easy way to move thatforward is to first import the Entourage 2008 database into Outlook 2011. After that, the converted 2011 database can be imported into any version of Outlook from the 2016 version or newer.

The hard way is you have to manually export all of your contacts as Vcards, and all of your emails dragged out of Entourage to the desktop as separate .mbox files. Then manually import those into Outlook. And honestly, I can't remember if you can just drag the .mbox files into Outlook 2016 or newer. But you should be able to.

frhmom wrote:

Thanks; however, I have Office 2008 for Mac so I am looking for the compatibility if I upgrade my Apple OS to Monterrey.

Best ask Microsoft Support for assistance with Microsoft apps, products, and services.

The Office 2021 one-time purchase purchase and the Microsoft 365 subscriptions should be able to access Office 2008 documents.

If not, the (free) LibreOffice suite does well reading older Office files and writing newer ones.

Microsoft Office 2016 is the oldest that will work on recent macOS.

Office 2008 will not work on anything past macOS 10.14 Mojave.

Office 2021 is the current purchase, and Microsoft 365 is the current subscription. LibreOffice (free) is one alternative, and there are others. The Apple iWork apps (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, all free) can read many Office files, but possibly not as far back as Office 2008.

If your Microsoft Office version is a 32 bit version it will not work with Monterey. You will have to upgrade your Microsoft Office app. Your documents will still be compatible.

You are welcome.

See Jim Gordon's (Microsoft MVP) response about the process of migration from Entourage to current versions of Outlook.