- Starting with the 16.17 release in September 2018, this information also applies to Office 2019 for Mac, which is a version of Office for Mac that’s available as a one-time purchase from a retail store or through a volume licensing agreement.
- Support for Office 2011 for Mac ended on 10 October 2017. Even if you are running Office 2016 for Mac you should update to version 15.35 or later. Update to the latest version of Microsoft Office.
If you have Office 2011 for Mac or before, do NOT update to Catalina because Office will stop working. There’s no workaround for this. There’s no workaround for this. Office 2016 for Mac needs to be v15.35 or later, which it probably is, if you’ve updated anytime in the last few months.
Microsoft Word 2016 is one of the most reliable, powerful, and feature rich word processors around, and while it's since been replaced by Word 2019, it still offers most of the functionality modern professionals need. For most people, Word needs no introduction. It's been a reliable standard on the Windows operating system for decades, and it's regarded by many as the benchmark by which all other word processing platforms are judged. But as free and cheap competitors came to the market, Word was starting to lag behind in terms of relevance. Fortunately, the 2016 is a return to form, bringing with it some smart updates and features that make it worth checking out by lapsed customers.
But just because Word has seen a significant update doesn't mean that veteran users will have to learn a new interface. In practical everyday terms, this is the same old Word. The menus and navigation interface are functionally the same, and you can expect to be able to find functions exactly where you remember them to be and rely on the old trusted keyboard shortcuts that have been a part of the product for years. But learning how to more efficiently use the platform is easier than ever before. A new search tool gives users the ability to quickly look up all the available commands. There's also improved protections built in to avoid data loss.
The ribbon was a controversial addition to the Office interface when it was first introduced, but it's since become a hallmark of the Word experience, and it works as well as ever. By condensing the most common tools that you're likely to use in a small but accessible menu bar, the ribbon gives more real estate to the document you're writing while allowing you to reach a variety of tools without having to dig deeply into menus.
But the big changes are reserved for collaboration. Word has always worked best as part of the largest Microsoft Office ecosystem, but Word 2016 brings this to a whole new level. Integration with the various components of the Office suite are tighter than everything before, and a major shift towards cloud based sharing has changed the way that professionals can use Word in some pretty major ways. Through the use of OneDrive, users can quickly share their Word documents with anyone they've given the proper privileges. But that's not the only way you can share files. Through integration with Outlook, you can attach a document via email and allow your recipients to go in and edit it at their discretion. An additional commenting feature allows you to mark up documents without changing their basic content. In short, Microsoft has paired Word with the sorts of functionality available through their Google cloud suite. Combine that with the polished and refined features at the heart of Word, and you have one of the finest word processing applications around.
Pros:
- Builds off the framework of one of the strongest word processors on the market
- Brings a whole wealth of new sharing and collaboration options
Cons:
- More expensive than many of its competitors
- Outdated since the release of Word 2019
Soon Microsoft are to release an update to the Office 2016 Volume License installer on VLSC.
This update is 15.17 & is the first that has a few changes that may affect the way you deploy Office 2016.
These changes are going to be later enforced in 15.20 & onwards. Below are some details on the changes, some of the why & how via the power of the MacAdmins.org Slack & the awesome @pbowden that some of us have had a sneak peek.
Contents
- 1 What’s Changing?
When you download the .iso from VLSC you’ll notice two packages within it:
The change is the new second pkg: “Microsoft_Office_2016_VL_Serializer.pkg”
What’s that about?
Well, for a while now it’s been fairly common practice to deploy the Office license to Macs outside of the Office installers or updates.
This came about as on occasion an Office Update or Installer would delete the file.
However, whilst the deletion itself was a bug, the ability to use the license.plist across Macs was also a bug.
What is it & should I use it?
With Office 2016, Microsoft are moving to a device based serialisation method. Which means that deploying the plist /Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.office.licensingv2.plist will no longer work.
This device based serialisation is based around the generating a license on the Mac that is to be running Office 2016.
So if you employ monolithic imaging or deploy Office 2016 via a Composer snap shot etc, the serialisation will not work. (Please don’t deploy Office 2016 via a Composer snap shot, use the pkg).
Also, if you install Office 2016 whilst booted to another volume (as in when installing via a NetBoot or NetInstall volume or something like Target Mode Imaging), again the serialisation will not work.
To install Office 2016 from another volume & have the serialisation work, cache it locally on the Mac being imaged & install on first boot or if using Casper Imaging check “Install on boot drive after Imaging” for the PKG from within Casper Admin.
However, to enable Office 2016 to be correctly licensed in the multitude of deployment scenarios that we mac admins employ, @pbowden & his team have created the “Microsoft_Office_2016_VL_Serializer.pkg”
Running this will correctly serialise the Office 2016 suite, & should be run from the Mac that’s running the suite. So again, can be added post imaging & then the suite will be correctly serialised.
To be clear, this will only affect you if using the Volume Licensed version of Office 2016 & not the Office365 version.
What happens if I carry on copying the licensing.plist?
For now, not much.
15.17 is the first release with the “Microsoft_Office_2016_VL_Serializer.pkg”, from 15.20 (scheduled for Q1 2016) you will have to use the correct license.
Office 2016 Mac Os
How did people find this out?
Well a little over a month ago a gentleman with the nick @pbowden hopped into the #microsoft-office channel on the MacAdmins.org Slack, this was awesome as @pbowden is a: Software engineer for Office for Mac/iOS at Microsoft, a fellow Brit & nice guy.
It’s been a great few weeks with the community sharing feedback with @pbowden & some of us being able to test pre-release installers for Office.
Office 2016 Mac
I hope this warning has been as helpful to you, as it was when @pbowden shared it with us.