Updating Office 2011 to Obtain Retina Update

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Level 1

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Updating Office 2011 to Obtain Retina Update

I purchased a new computer (2017 MacBook Pro) and installed my CD copy of Microsoft Office 2011 on it. However, after installation I learned that Microsoft has abandoned Office 2011 for Mac and is no longer allowing people to download the retina update they released after the initial 2011 CD's were burned. The applications run fine on my laptop; however, the app's text and features are all blurry running on my modern Retina 2017 MacBook Pro.

I have Office 2011 running on several other Mac's in my house, that all received the latest retina updates (and others) from MS until these stopped in late 2017.

Hence my question: is it possible, and if so how, to transfer the system files from these properly running "Retina updated" MS Office 2011 files from these other Macs and get them to run with the retina update on my new 2017 MacBook Pro?

Or alternatively, is there any other way to find the necessary files to get MS Office 2011 running properly with the retina update on my new laptop?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3)

Posted on Mar 11, 2018 11:33 AM

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Answer 1

iwick Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 12, 2018 2:19 PM in response to dialabrain

Dang! I thought you had solved it, but when I went to install this, I got this error:

Which I don't understand because I have a legit, purchased copy of Mac Office 2011 in the original CD's and serial number (which was accepted at installation). You can see the version that installs is version 14.0, so why wouldn't an update to 14.7.7 work?? See Info box below from Word (you can see the non-retina text)

Is there an intermediary update I need to do first?

Is there any way to drag the updated files from another Mac onto my new Mac?

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Answer 2

iwick Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 12, 2018 3:02 PM in response to Kurt Lang

The auto updates aren't working.

But after spending an hour bouncing around on a Microsoft help desk, I finally got this link from them:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/office

They had a link that downloaded the UPDATED office files. It's running 14.5.2 but it is retina so that is all I care about.

Thanks for the help - I got it working now via that MS link!

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Answer 3

Mar 11, 2018 11:38 AM in response to iwick

Why not just update your Office for Mac 2011 installation to v14.7.7 from October 2017. Surely it will include all the Retina support you need, as it was the last update before the product was end-of-lifed.

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Answer 4

iwick Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 12, 2018 3:49 AM in response to VikingOSX

That is exactly my question. How do I update to the version you mention? Microsoft turn off automatic updating so when trying to update within the application the program says there are no updates available. And all the links to that update on Microsoft support pages are gone.

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Answer 5

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,900 points

Mar 12, 2018 2:26 PM in response to iwick

The easiest way (assuming you can launch any Office 2011 app) is once one of them is open, choose Help > Check For Updates at the top menu bar.

What you may be running into with your later (Dang!) post is that an earlier update likely needs to be installed before you can apply 14.7.7. There were Service Pack updates which would need to be applied first.

Service Pack 1

Service Pack 2

After that, I can't quite remember the sequence.

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