In November, Ken reported:
I just upgraded the OS on my 2020 Mac Air from Ventura 13.6.6 to Sonoma 14.7.1 because my email browsers were getting slower and slower. And the upgrade solved that problem. However, I use this laptop for nothing beyond emailing and writing documents in Microsoft Word (now 2021 version)–which is the only word-processing software I’ve used since 1998, so I’d like to stay with Word.
Since upgrading the OS, Word now takes up to 30 seconds to open and I get a spinning beach ball for 10 seconds every time I save. Nothing will fix it, even the Microsoft AutoUpdater.
I suggested a few things for him to try. Then, yesterday, he sent this note.
I wanted to wait until I’d had an extended discussion with Microsoft before following up with you.
Today, a Microsoft senior support technician and I spent over an hour working on the ‘corrupted disc directories’. We deleted all the Microsoft Office software and associated ‘containers’ and reloaded the latest versions. Regardless, my problems persist.
I discovered a couple of Reddit threads going back 8 months that document exactly the same problems that I’ve been experiencing, namely: Office 2021 is not compatible with Mac OS Sonoma on forward.
So, the problem is clearly software-based and the only workaround for the moment until Microsoft remedies the software is to go back to an earlier version of Office Word, particularly version 16.84. Reportedly, this works so I’m going to try that.
Thanks again for your advice.
Larry adds: I don’t have a way to test this personally, but wanted to share this caution with you in case it helps.
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17 Responses to Caution: Apparent Incompatibility Between Microsoft Office 2021 and macOS Sonoma (14.x)
← Older Comments-
Ken Paul Rosenthal says:
January 13, 2025 at 2:05 pm
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Derek Roff says:
January 13, 2025 at 2:07 pm
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Tony says:
January 13, 2025 at 2:17 pm
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Derek Roff says:
January 13, 2025 at 2:20 pm
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Ken Paul Rosenthal says:
January 13, 2025 at 2:50 pm
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Ken Paul Rosenthal says:
January 16, 2025 at 1:50 pm
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Larry says:
January 16, 2025 at 2:58 pm
← Older CommentsThere was no Rosetta box to uncheck, alas…
Hi, Ken. It’s surprising to me that you are using version 16.92 of Word, because some Microsoft pages associate this version with Office 2024 and Office 365, but not 2021. It’s very, very hard to pin down the 16.xx version numbers to the different year version names and to the variations for home vs. standard vs. pro, etc. According to the link below, posted by Microsoft on January 26, 2024, the latest version for Office 2021 Standard is 16.81.
I, too, am puzzled by your Mac Studio working fine, and your MacBook Air giving trouble. In any case, I often get Word files for colleagues who are using Word 2019 and perhaps earlier, on both Mac and Windows. I have no problem opening any of them, and they have reported no problems opening the files that I send to them. This gives me confidence that you will be fine moving Word files between your Mac Studio and your MacBook Air.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/office-2021-standard-mac-autoupdate-demands/5edf0b3b-1f77-4e83-897d-5d4de5b75546
FWIW: I am running MacOS Sonoma 14.7.1 on a Mac Studio M2 and the latest version of MS Office software works great for me. I’m using the MS 365 Subscription, Word is the latest at Version 16.92 (24120731).
Strange that you see no Rosetta checkbox in Get Info for Microsoft Word.app. I see it when I select Get Info on my version of Word, also 16.92, running macOS 15.2. For me, the Rosetta checkbox is the eighth line below ‘General’ at the top of the Get Info window, right below ‘Copyright: © 2024 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.’ Above the checkbox for ‘Scale to fit below built-in camera’, and above the ‘More Info’ section.
I took a screen shot, but I don’t see a way to add that to this discussion page.
Yes, I looked there, but nothing, alas…
PROBLEM SOLVED!!! All I had to do was update to the lastest version of Sequoia. Mircosoft Workd now operating like greased lightning for the first time in years!
Ken:
Yay! I’m very glad you got this working again.
Larry