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Sep 14, 2011 MS PowerPoint is the most popular presentation application, designed and marketed by Microsoft Corporation. It is part of Microsoft Office productivity suite. This application is also available for Mac OS X operating systems, as a part of Microsoft Office for Mac Suit of Applications. If you installed Office 2016 for Mac back in September but haven't been able to update the suite since, here's a look at some troubleshooting tips. How to Fix Microsoft Office AutoUpdate for Mac. Not sure if this is the same issue, but I’m using Mac OS X 10.5.6 and after a recent Office update I had some problems with Excel. Using mac office 2008 when I tried to open any excel file, or start from scratch, I got, “microsoft excel has encountered a problem and needs to close. Microsoft AutoUpdate may offer Office 2016 for Mac updates even though you have Office for Mac 2008 installed. Upon accepting the update, Office for Mac 2008 gets automatically upgraded to Office 2016. This can occur if you are using version 3.14.0 of Microsoft AutoUpdate. STATUS: FIXED. This issue has been fixed in Microsoft AutoUpdate version.

1. Apple
2. Microsoft Office 2008 For Mac
3. Repair Microsoft Office 2011 Mac
4. Office 2008 Mac

1. If you rename or modify any of the files in the Microsoft Office 2008 folder, you cannot install product updates. Rename any Office components you may have renamed (for example, if you changed the name of Microsoft Word to Word 2008; rename it to Microsoft Word) If you moved any Office component out of the Microsoft Office 2008 folder, put it back.
2. Right-click the Start button (lower-left corner), and select Apps and Features on the pop-up menu. Select the Microsoft Office product you want to repair, and select Modify. Note:  This will repair the entire Office suite even if it's just one application you want to repair such as Word or Excel.

Note

Office 365 ProPlus is being renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. For more information about this change, read this blog post.

Symptoms

When you start Microsoft Word for Mac, or when you try to open a new document, you experience one of the following conditions:

• The program closes unexpectedly.

• Error message:

Note

This error message may also occur during usage of application such as saving a document.

Resolution

Apple

To resolve this problem, follow steps below.

Microsoft Word for Mac 2008 or Later

Step 1: Quit all applications

1. On the Apple menu, click Force Quit.

2. Select an application in the 'Force Quit Applications' window.

3. Click Force Quit.

4. Repeat the previous steps until all active applications.

Warning

When an application is force quit, any unsaved changes to open documents are not saved.

Step 2: Remove Preferences

1. Quit all Microsoft Office for Mac programs.

2. On the Go menu, click Home.

3. Open Library.

   Note

   The Library folder is hidden in MAC OS X Lion. To display this folder, hold down the OPTION key while you click the Go menu.

4. Open the Preferences folder.

5. Look for a file that is named com.microsoft.Word.plist.

6. If you locate the file, move it to the desktop. If you do not locate the file, the program is using the default preferences.

7. If you locate the file and move it to the desktop, start Word, and check whether the problem still occurs. If the problem still occurs, quit Microsoft Word, and restore the file to its original location. Then, go to the next step. If the problem seems to be resolved, you can move the com.microsoft.Word.plist file to the trash.

8. Quit all Microsoft Office for Mac programs.

9. On the Go menu, click Home.

10. Open Library.

    Note

    The Library folder is hidden in MAC OS X Lion. To display this folder, hold down the OPTION key while you click the Go menu.

11. Open the Preferences folder.

12. Open the Microsoft folder.

13. Locate the file that is named com.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist.

14. Move the file to the desktop.

15. Start Word, and check whether the problem still occurs. If the problem still occurs, quit Word, and restore the file to its original location. Then, go to the next step. If the problem seems to be resolved, you can move the com.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist file to the trash.

16. On the Go menu, click Home.

17. Open Library.

    Note

    The Library folder is hidden in MAC OS X Lion. To display this folder, hold down the OPTION key while you click the Go menu.

18. Open the Application Support folder.

19. Open the Microsoft folder.

20. Open the Office folder.

21. Open the User Templates folder.

22. Locate the file that is named Normal, and move the file to the desktop.

23. Start Word and check whether the problem still occurs. If the problem seems to be resolved, you can move the Normal file to the Trash. If the issue continues to occur, proceed to the next step.

If the issue continues to occur, go to the next step.

Step 3: Peform clean boot

For information how to clean start your Operating system (OS), see Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

2398596 How to use a 'clean startup' to determine whether background programs are interfering with Office for Mac

If the issue continues to occur in Safe mode, go to the next step.

Step 4: Remove and then reinstall Office

For information how to remove and then reinstall Office, see the following article:

If after removing and then reinstalling Office, the problem continues to occur, go to the next step.

Step 5: Use the 'Repair Disk Permissions' option

You can use the Repair Disk Permissions option to troubleshoot permissions problems in Mac OS X 10.2 or later versions. To use the Repair Disk Permissions option, follow these steps:

1. On the Go menu, click Utilities.
2. Start the Disk Utility program.
3. Click the primary hard disk drive for your computer.
4. Click the First Aid tab.
5. Click Repair Disk Permissions.

Note

The Disk Utility program only repairs software that is installed by Apple. This utility also repairs folders, such as the Applications folder. However, this utility does not repair software that is in your home folder.

Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac

1. Quit all Microsoft Office for Mac programs.

2. On the Go menu, click Home.

3. Open Library.

   Note

   The Library folder is hidden in MAC OS X Lion. To display this folder, hold down the OPTION key while you click the Go menu.

4. Open the Preferences folder.

5. Look for a file that is named com.microsoft.Word.plist.

6. If you locate the file, move it to the desktop. If you do not locate the file, the program is using the default preferences.

7. If you locate the file and move it to the desktop, start Word, and check whether the problem still occurs. If the problem still occurs, quit Word, and restore the file to its original location. Then, go to the next step. If the problem seems to be resolved, you can move the com.microsoft.Word.plist file to the trash.

8. Qit all Microsoft Office for Mac programs.

9. On the Go menu, click Home.

10. Open Library.

    Note

    The Library folder is hidden in MAC OS X Lion. To display this folder, hold down the OPTION key while you click the Go menu.

11. Open the Preferences folder.

12. Open the Microsoft folder.

13. Look for a file that is named com.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist.

14. Move the file to the desktop.

15. Start Word, and check whether the problem still occurs. If the problem still occurs, quit Word, and restore the file to its original location. Then, go to the next step. If the problem seems to be resolved, you can move the com.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist file to the trash.

16. On the Go menu, click Home.

17. Open the Documents folder.

18. Open the Microsoft User Data folder.

19. Locate the file that is named Normal, and move the file to the desktop.

20. Start Word, and check whether the problem still occurs. If the problem seems to be resolved, you can move the Normal file to the trash.

Third-party disclaimer information

The third-party products that this article discusses are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, about the performance or reliability of these products.

The information and the solution in this document represent the current view of Microsoft Corporation on these issues as of the date of publication. This solution is available through Microsoft or through a third-party provider. Microsoft does not specifically recommend any third-party provider or third-party solution that this article might describe. There might also be other third-party providers or third-party solutions that this article does not describe. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, this information should not be interpreted to be a commitment by Microsoft. Microsoft cannot guarantee or endorse the accuracy of any information or of any solution that is presented by Microsoft or by any mentioned third-party provider.

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is a version of the Microsoft Officeproductivity suite for Mac OS X. It supersedes Office 2004 for Mac (which did not have Intel native code) and is the Mac OS X equivalent of Office 2007. Office 2008 was developed by Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit and released on January 15, 2008. Office 2008 was followed by Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 released on October 26, 2010, requiring a Mac with an Intel processor and Mac OS version 10.5 or better. Office 2008 is also the last version to feature Entourage, which was replaced by Outlook in Office 2011. Microsoft stopped supporting Office 2008 on April 9, 2013.

Release[edit]

Office 2008 was originally slated for release in the second half of 2007; however, it was delayed until January 2008, purportedly to allow time to fix lingering bugs.^[3] Office 2008 is the only version of Office for Mac supplied as a Universal Binary.

Unlike Office 2007 for Windows, Office 2008 was not offered as a public beta before its scheduled release date.^[4]

Features[edit]

Office 2008 for Mac includes the same core programs currently included with Office 2004 for Mac: Entourage, Excel, PowerPoint and Word.

Mac-only features included are a publishing layout view, which offers functionality similar to Microsoft Publisher for Windows, a 'Ledger Sheet mode' in Excel to ease financial tasks, and a 'My Day' application offering a quick way to view the day's events.^[5]

Office 2008 supports the new Office Open XML format, and defaults to saving all files in this format. On February 21, 2008 Geoff Price revealed that the format conversion update for Office 2004 would be delayed until June 2008 in order to provide the first update to Office 2008.^[6]

Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications is not supported in this version.^[7] As a result, such Excel add-ins dependent on VBA, such as Solver, have not been bundled in the current release.^[8] In June 2008, Microsoft announced that it is exploring the idea of bringing some of the functionality of Solver back to Excel.^[9] In late August 2008, Microsoft announced that a new Solver for Excel 2008 was available as a free download from Frontline Systems, original developers of the Excel Solver.^[10][11] However, Excel 2008 also lacks other functionality, such as Pivot Chart functionality, which has long been a feature in the Windows version. In May 2008, Microsoft announced that VBA will be making a return in the next version of Microsoft Office for Mac.^[12]AppleScript and the Open Scripting Architecture will still be supported.

Limitations[edit]

Office 2008 for Mac lacks feature parity with the Windows version. The lack of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) support in Excel makes it impossible to use macros programmed in VBA. Microsoft's response is that adding VBA support in Xcode would have resulted in an additional two years added to the development cycle of Office 2008.^[13] Other unsupported features include: OMML equations generated in Word 2007 for Windows,^[14] Office 'Ribbon', Mini Toolbar, Live Preview, and an extensive list of features are unsupported such as equivalent SharePoint integration with the Windows version. Some features are missing on Excel 2008 for Mac, including: data filters (Data Bars, Top 10, Color-based, Icon-based), structured references, Excel tables, Table styles, a sort feature allowing more than three columns at once and more than one filter on a sort.

Benchmarks suggest that the original release of Office 2008 runs slower on Macs with PowerPC processors, and does not provide a significant speed bump for Macs with Intel processors.^[15]

A using a program to remove application support files in unwanted languages), and which do not affect Office's operations, but which cause the updaters' installers to believe that the application is not valid for update. A small modification to the installer has been found an effective work-around (see reference).^[18]

Another widespread problem reported after SP1 is that Office files will no longer open in Office applications when opened (double-clicked) from the Mac OS X Finder or launched from other applications such as an email attachment. The trigger for this problem is that Microsoft in SP1 unilaterally and without warning deprecated certain older Mac OS 'Type' codes such as 'WDBN' that some files may have, either because they are simply very old, or because some applications assign the older Type code when saving them to the disk. Users have seen the problem affect even relatively new Type codes, however, such as 'W6BN'. Microsoft is apparently looking into the problem, but it is unclear if they will reinstate the older Type codes, citing security concerns.^[19]

Another problem with cross-platform compatibility is that images inserted into any Office application by using either cut and paste or drag and drop result in a file that does not display the inserted graphic when viewed on a Windows machine. Instead, the Windows user is told 'QuickTime and a TIFF (LZW) decompressor are needed to see this picture'. A user presented one solution as far back as December 2004.^[20]

A further example of the lack of feature parity is the track changes function. Whereas users of Word 2003 or 2007 for Windows are able to choose freely between showing their changes in-line or as balloons in the right-hand margin,^[21][22] choosing the former option in Word 2004 or Word 2008 for Mac OS also turns off all comment balloons; comments in this case are visible only in the Reviewing Pane or as popup boxes (i.e. upon mouseover).^[23] This issue has not been resolved to date and is present in the latest version of Word for the Mac, namely Word 2011.^[24]

Microsoft Office 2008 For Mac

The toolbox found in Office 2008 also has problems when the OS X feature Spaces is used: switching from one Space to another will cause elements of the Toolbox to get trapped on one Space until the Toolbox is closed and reopened. The only remedy for this problem is to currently disable Spaces, or at least refrain from using it whilst working in Office 2008.^[25] Microsoft has acknowledged this problem and states that it is an architectural problem with the implementation of Spaces. Apple has been informed of the problem, according to Microsoft.^[26] The problem appears to be caused by the fact that the Toolbox is Carbon-based.^{[citation needed]} Using Microsoft Office with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard solves some of the problems.^[26]

Repair Microsoft Office 2011 Mac

In addition, there is no support for right to left and bidirectional languages (such as Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, etc.) in Office 2008,^[27][28] making it impossible to read or edit a right to left document in Word 2008 or PowerPoint 2008. Languages such as Thai are similarly not supported, although installing fonts can sometimes allow documents written in these languages to be displayed.

Moreover, Office 2008 proofing tools support only a limited number of languages (Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Swiss German).^[29] Proofing tools for other languages failed to find their way to the installation pack, and are not offered by Microsoft commercially in the form of separately sold language packs. At the same time, Office applications are not integrated with the proofing tools native to Mac OS X 10.6 Leopard.

Microsoft Visio is not available for OS X. This means that any embedded Visio diagrams in other Office documents (e.g. Word) cannot be edited in Office on the Mac. Embedded Visio diagrams appear as a low-quality bitmap both in the WYSIWYG editor and upon printing the document on the Mac.

Editions[edit]

Office 2008 Mac

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'Microsoft Support Lifecycle - Office 2008'. Microsoft. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
2. ^'Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Specs'. CNET. January 15, 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
3. ^'It's Coming: Mac BU Announces Intent to Deliver Office 2008 for Mac'. Microsoft. January 9, 2007. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007.
4. ^'Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac delayed until January 2008'. TUAW. August 2, 2007.
5. ^'Microsoft starts testing Office 2008 for Mac'. Cnet. April 2, 2007. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved September 19, 2007.
6. ^'MS Office Mac Discussion Board'. January 15, 2008.
7. ^'Saying goodbye to Visual Basic'. August 8, 2006.
8. ^'MS Office Mac Discussion Board'. January 15, 2008.
9. ^'Excel 2008 and Solver'. June 26, 2008.
10. ^'Solver For Excel 2008 Is Available'. August 29, 2008.
11. ^'Solver is Back for Microsoft Excel 2008 on Macintosh'. August 29, 2008.
12. ^'Microsoft Office Update, and Visual Basic for Applications to Return - Mac Rumors'. May 13, 2008.
13. ^'MS Mactopia Blog'. March 13, 2008.
14. ^Known issues in Word 2008 – Equations saved from Word 2007 for Windows do not appear in Word 2008 for Mac
15. ^'MS Mactopia Blog'. March 13, 2008.
16. ^'CambridgeSoft Website'.
17. ^New installer for 12.0.1 (The Entourage Help Blog)
18. ^MacFixit article: More Fixes for Problems InstallingArchived January 26, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
19. ^http://www.microsoft.com/mac/help.mspx?target=0b9aa757-50ab-443b-8b0e-3a50ece1d5451033&clr=99-4-0
20. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on June 26, 2008. Retrieved June 30, 2008.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
21. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on July 2, 2009. Retrieved July 9, 2009.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
22. ^'IT training – IT training – IT Services – Administrative and academic support divisions – Services and divisions – Staff and students – Home'. Ittraining.lse.ac.uk. May 7, 2010. Archived from the original on February 27, 2009. Retrieved May 30, 2010.
23. ^[1]^{[dead link]}
24. ^http://officeformac.com/ms/ProductForums/Word/11634/0
25. ^Bugs & Fixes: Office 2008 and Leopard’s Spaces don’t mix, Macworld, December 8, 2008
26. ^ ^abOffice 2008 for Mac and Mac OS X Spaces, Microsoft
27. ^Help and How-To for Microsoft for Mac Office Products | Mactopia
28. ^Higgaion » It’s official: no RTL support in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
29. ^Proofing tools that are available for each language

External links[edit]

• MacBU interview: Office 2008 Exchange Server support^{[permanent dead link]}