I've been searching for a cure to my loss of Word files (letting my subscription to 365 lapse resulted in Microsoft hijacking my Office files), so someone mentioned that Pages could read Word and other Office 2008 & 2016 files.
Anyone with any experience with this? Thanks.
MacBook Pro with Retina display, Mac OS X (10.7.5)
So, I get a couple of signals that I can no longer access these (mostly) Word files. Here's what I get when I try to open a file: Note the line that tells me to renew if I want to do anything. I've been told (by others on this community forum) that simplest fix is to just give up and buy the @#$%* Office for Mac 2016.
Are you disputing this? Am I to understand that the only way is to renew 365?
Your profile says OS X 10.7.5. LibreOffice v5.4.6 requires at minimum — Mountain Lion 10.8, and v6+ requires OS X Mavericks or later. The version of Pages in the Mac App Store requires macOS 10.12 or later for its installation.
Here is a Wikipedia overview of LibreOffice. Essentially it is an MS Office replacement suite of applications. LibreOffice maintains detailed, downloadable, PDF manuals for its individual applications here.
LibreOffice applications have the highest Microsoft document compatibility of any solution out there, and certainly far better than Apple provides in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote applications.
LibreOffice can open Microsoft documents that MS Office has trouble opening, and includes the ability to open all generations of Visio and MS Publisher documents, as well as older MS Works content.
Because LibreOffice is not downloaded from the Mac App Store (and I never recommend LibreOffice Vanilla that is there), it must be validated by the operating system before it can be used. There is a simple, one-time approach to this.
Install it.
Jean N wrote:
I've been searching for a cure to my loss of Word files (letting my subscription to 365 lapse resulted in Microsoft hijacking my Office files), so someone mentioned that Pages could read Word and other Office 2008 & 2016 files.
Anyone with any experience with this? Thanks.
Not sure what exactly you mean by "Microsoft Hijacking my Office files". What exactly happened?
Yes Pages can open Office files and and covert them to its own format, or export them back into office format.
But if the files are somehow not accessible to you, Pages isn't going to do much.
Otherwise, there's no real issue. Just open the files, from the Pages file menu, and it will convert them to Pages format as it opens them. Once opened they can be saved as Pages or exported back as Word files.
If they are not accessible, why aren't they? If you stop paying for Office 365, you lose access to the Apps, not the files unless they were stored on the paid portion of OneDrive. In which case I'm not sure there's a way to get them back.
LibreOffice is decent free alternative to Microsoft Office as mentioned.
I was not aware that all my Word files (doc and docx) would be wiped out if I didn't continue the subscription.
That's what has happened, and the forum on Microsoft like this one says so.
So, I've lost all letters, documents, etc. that were produced in either Word 2008 or in Word 2016.
That's a separate issue, of course, and I'm pursuing it with Microsoft.
Thanks for the endorsement of LibreOffice. I did look at it but there seems to be little info about it on the site.
Thanks, everyone, but I have given up!
I'm going to download Office for Mac 2016 and be done with the hassle.
I appreciate your help and, after this program is installed, I'll let you know (and Microsoft!)
whether my greyed out files reappear.
J
I'm a bit confused.
Where are your files appearing greyed out exactly?
Buying Office 2016, may not bring them back if the reason they are greyed out is because they were stored in the paid portion of OneDrive. If that is the case, the only way to get them back is to pay for the Office 365 subscription to get the 1TB of space back with the files.
Otherwise where exactly are the showing as greyed out? Where you not saving them locally on your computer?
Throwing money at it, without actually understanding what happened, is not really a good strategy.
You are getting that message because you subscribed to Microsoft Office, the subscription is expired and you are trying to use the expired application. It is all about the application -- not about your files. Microsoft has not "hijacked" your files or done anything to any of them.
You can access all of your files using Pages or LibreOffice (or Microsoft Office if you want to renew the subscription or buy a standalone copy). If you are used to Microsoft Word you will likely find it easier to use LibreOffice than Pages but either will work.
Simply open LibreOffice (after downloading from https://www.libreoffice.org/ ) or open Pages and then use the File menu Open command in either of them to open and edit your files.
You can also set all of your Word files to automatically by opening Finder, select (highlight) any Word file in Finder and then use the Finder File menu Get Info (or command I) and in the Info window "Open With" section, select Pages (or LibreOffice if you have installed it) and then click the "Change All" button.
Jean N wrote:
So, I get a couple of signals that I can no longer access these (mostly) Word files. Here's what I get when I try to open a file: Note the line that tells me to renew if I want to do anything.
Its telling you the application, Word in this case, cannot be used until you renew your subscription. Office 365 Applications require an active subscription to work.
Your files are not hijacked, or removed, they simply cannot be edited with the Word Application because your subscription is expired.
If you open them in any other program, like we've been saying, Pages, Libre Office, even yes Office 2016 once you buy it, they will work.
Your files have not been touched by Microsoft. Your files can be accessed any way you wish, but the 365 applications cannot be used to edit the files until you renew the subscription.
Yes, getting Office 2016 will let you edit those files, because you are using an entirely different application to the one that's giving you the message.
Then question is why not renew the subscription?
Or if you don't want to pay, just use free application like Pages or LibreOffice to open your files. There's no requirement it be Office 2016 at all.
Again, there's nothing wrong with your files. Its the Applications that are tied to the subscription.
As the professor said to Eiiza Doolittle: "I believe you've got it!!' - or something like that. The sentence: It is all about the application -- not about your files. That finally clicked.
I'll try Pages since it's here and handy. Never worked it before, but I'll see how it goes. If it's too much hassle, I'll buy the Microsoft for Mac Office 2016.
I'll print out your response, Mr FoxFifth, and put it where I can see it and try the system you prescribe.
Many thanks!!!!
JN
Pages is one option but LibreOffice is free and a better option for Word compatibility and I think it is easier to transition to if you are familiar with Word: https://www.libreoffice.org/
Probably a better, strategic decision. Office 2016 for Mac is available as a single purchase, or the affordable Office365 subscription, so you have choices. Just keep it updated.😉
Converting Word files to Pages
