13-05-2021

Microsoft Office 365 Mac Compatibility

Today, Office 365 is available for the first time on the Mac App Store, making it easier than ever for Mac users to download Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and the whole suite of Microsoft’s popular apps. Users can also purchase a subscription for Office 365 from within the apps, so they can get up and running instantly.

Microsoft Office 365 Mac Compatibility 2017
Microsoft Office 365 Mac Compatibility Chart

Office 365 for Mac has been designed specifically to support features that are unique to the Mac experience — features like Dark Mode and Continuity Camera in macOS, as well as the MacBook Pro Touch Bar and the Mac’s industry-leading Trackpad.

“We are excited to welcome Microsoft Office 365 to the all new Mac App Store in macOS Mojave,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Apple and Microsoft have worked together to bring great Office productivity to Mac users from the very beginning. Now, with Office 365 on the Mac App Store, it's easier than ever to get the latest and best version of Office 365 for Mac, iPad and iPhone.”

“We are excited to announce that today Office 365 is arriving in the Mac App Store,” said Jared Spataro, corporate vice president at Microsoft. “We have worked closely with Apple to provide Mac users with the very best productivity experience — one that offers everything they know and love about Office through an experience uniquely designed for the Mac.”

In business, as at home, employees want access to the best devices and apps to do their work. With Office 365 on the Mac App Store, these apps can now be easily distributed to employees using Apple Business Manager, a central dashboard where IT can deploy devices, apps and licenses. Now IT can quickly enable employees to get to work with their favorite Office tools across Mac, iPad and iPhone, with great new features designed specifically for Apple devices.

About the Mac App Store

Note: The Compatibility Report checks for compatibility issues with Office 98 for Mac through Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 and with Windows versions from Office 97 through the Microsoft Office 2010. On the PowerPoint menu, click Preferences, and then click Compatibility. Collaborate for free with online versions of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. Save documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online, in OneDrive. Important: Some items that were created using new features in Office for Mac 2011 or Office 2016 for Mac might behave differently when the document is saved in the file format used by Office 2004 for Mac or earlier. Use the Compatibility Report to avoid using new Office features that might behave differently with earlier versions of Office.

The Mac App Store is the single largest catalog of Mac apps in the world. Newly redesigned this past year, the Mac App Store features a new look and rich editorial content for a more enjoyable experience when finding great, new apps for the Mac. Like the iOS App Store, the new Mac App Store celebrates apps, games, businesses and developers with an all-new Discover tab featuring compelling stories, in-depth interviews, helpful tips, collections of must-have apps and more. Users can also explore new Create, Work, Play and Develop tabs to find the perfect app for a specific project or purpose — from music, video and photography apps to business utilities and games.

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Press Contacts

Starlayne Meza

Apple

(408) 974-3391

Apple Media Helpline

(408) 974-2042

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Applies to:Office 365 ProPlus, Office 2019, and Office 2016

In Office, compatibility mode is used automatically to open Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents that were created in earlier versions of these applications. Compatibility mode ensures that no new or improved features in Office are available while users work with a document so that people who use earlier versions of Office will have full editing capabilities. Compatibility mode also preserves the layout of the document.

How Office uses compatibility mode

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint use compatibility mode to open binary Office documents that were created in Office 2003 or earlier versions of Office. Word also uses compatibility mode to open OpenXML documents that were created in Word 2007 and Word 2010.

Set default compatibility mode on file creation for Word

If you use Group Policy, you can use the Set default compatibility mode on file creation policy setting to manage the default compatibility mode that Word uses to create new Word documents. This might be necessary if you have add-ins or macros that use the layout functions that are used in Word 2007 or Word 2010. When you enable this policy setting, you can specify which versions of Word that new Word documents are compatible with. Several configurations options are available for this setting:

Word 2003 This mode disables features in Word that are incompatible with Word 2003.
Word 2007 This mode disables features in Word that are incompatible with Word 2007.
Word 2010 This mode disables features in Word that are incompatible with Word 2010.
Full functionality mode This mode makes sure that all new features remain enabled. This is the default setting for Word.

When you choose the Word 2003 option, Word is configured to create new Open XML files that have Word 2007 and later features disabled. Doing so makes sure that the Open XML files do not contain content that Word 2003 users can't edit. However, users of Office 2003 must still have the Compatibility Pack installed before they can edit Word Open XML files that are compatible with Word 2003.