Word, Excel & PowerPoint installed on my Mac Book Air at time of purchase, now no editing

I think Microsoft sells both one-time-payment versions of Office, and subscription versions of Office (now renamed to Microsoft 365). But they will probably push you towards the subscription.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365?rtc=1

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/buy/compare-all-microsoft-365-products?tab=1

Here we go ... you can get Office Home & Student 2021 (one-time purchase) for $150, to run on a single PC or Mac, versus Microsoft 365 Personal, which is tied to one person (not one device) and costs $70/year. With Office Home & Student, you don't get Outlook (Microsoft's e-mail application) or some other things (see their chart).

There is a Free and Open Source office suite called LibreOffice that can open many Microsoft Office documents. It has versions for macOS, Windows, and Linux.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

Nancy Z. wrote:

Thank you.

Now it wants me to buy a new subscription. Ugh.

If your subscription has expired, yes you will have to buy a new subscription. If you were using an old version of Office that is no longer supported or no longer is compatible with your system upgrade, yes you will need to buy a new subscription.

You could try the free LibreOffice if you don't want to pay for a new Microsoft Office subscription.

Nancy Z. Said:

"Word, Excel & PowerPoint installed on my Mac Book Air at time of purchase, now no editing: Hi, I had Word, Excel & PowerPoint installed on my Mac Book Air at time of purchase about 5 years ago. Now I am able to view my documents but not edit until I activate my new Microsoft account.[...]"

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Troubleshooting Office:



Contact Microsoft Support:

They are the developer of the Software.

Start Here:  Microsoft Contact Us Virtual Agent - Microsoft Support

Nancy Z. wrote:

Hi Bob, I have my original version of the above and have updated it as they come up. When I open a document I cannot do anything but read it or print it. The message “Activate Microsoft 365 to Create and Edit is displayed. I did activate it and still inoperable.

Contact Microsoft. It appears you did not complete the activation process.

Nancy Z. wrote:

Hi, I had Word, Excel & PowerPoint installed on my Mac Book Air at time of purchase about 5 years ago. Now I am able to view my documents but not edit until I activate my new Microsoft account. I activated it, but I cannot access my previous documents.

Anyone else experiencing this as well?

Thanks!

Maybe a question for the Microsoft Help Communities

If you have a current version of Microsoft Office it will open and edit all Office documents created in previous versions of Office.

Activations get broken by things you'd not suspect would do that.