Office on the Mac has always been considered a bit of an after-thought, but with Apple’s dumbing down of its iWork apps, Microsoft has gone to great lengths to give the first new version of Office in five years a real shot in the arm.
Office 2016 is all about the cloud – it’s tightly integrated into Microsoft’s OneDrive and SharePoint services. Its codebase has been completely refreshed and optimised for modern Macs, and it’s designed to work beautifully on Retina displays.
Like the previous version, it consists of five apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote, and each has been updated and redesigned to fit in with the modern Office look that’s been rolled out on other platforms while ensuring it fits in with the OS X look.
Veteran users will notice the ribbon has been updated along with the task pane to make features more immediate and visible. Word users gain a handy new Design tab for managing a document’s layout, and a Navigation sidebar (confusingly referred to as Document Sidebar) for working more efficiently with larger documents.
Installation Instruction: Download the installation file by clicking on the link below, save it to your computer. After download finishes, locate the file Office-Mac2011.dmg and double click on the file. The file will extract and launch the installer automatically. Follow with on screen instructions. You will need approximately 2.5 GB of free. Download Box Notes for Mac. Download Box Notes for Windows. Keep all your files at your fingertips, whether you're online or off. Share huge files with just a link (no need for attachments). Preview 120+ file types without downloading and easily search for files and folders. Download Box for iPhone and iPad. Download Box for Android.
Excel’s new features bring it in line with Excel 2013 on Windows, and include a new Analysis Toolpak offering a wide number of statistical functions, as well as a PivotTable Slicer, which is designed to pick out patterns from large volumes of data.
PowerPoint debuts a new Presenter View that makes it easier than ever to present your slideshow, plus a new animation pane is supplemented with a number of new slide transition effects.
The suite is rounded off with the latest version of Outlook for Mac, recently released as a standalone product, and OneNote. The Mac version of the latter remains less powerful than on other platforms, but is slowly catching up. Version 15.8 improves its sharing capabilities.
Regardless of how you feel about Microsoft on the Mac platform, there’s no doubt this is the slickest, most feature-packed version of Office yet. If you’re looking for a serious office package, this is it.
Note: only Office 365 users can use Office for Mac 2016 at the moment - the standalone version launches in September. For now, use the download link above to activate a free 30-day trial of the Office 365 service using your Microsoft Account.
Verdict:
It’s not as beautiful or well integrated as the iPad version, but Office for Mac 2016 is a major leap forward from previous versions and scores where it counts: in functionality and power.
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Applies to:Office for Mac, Office LTSC for Mac 2021, Office 2019 for Mac
There are two basic ways that you, as an admin, can deploy Office to Mac users in your organization:
Provide your Mac users with the installer package file, and have them install Office for themselves
Download the installer package file to your local network, and then use your software distribution tools to deploy Office to Mac devices
If you have a Microsoft 365 (or Office 365) plan, you can provide your Mac users with instructions on how to download and install Office themselves. To install Office on a Mac, a user has to be an administrator on the device or know an administrator account name and password.
But, if you deploy Office for your Mac users, you have more control over the deployment, including which users get Office and when. To plan your deployment, review the following information.
Note
For information about upgrades, see Upgrade an installation of Office for Mac.
Download Office for Mac to your local network
The easiest way to download Office for Mac, and ensure you're always getting the most current version and build, is to download directly from the Office Content Delivery Network (CDN) on the internet. Here are the links to the installer packages for the Office suite, which contains all the applications.
- Office for Mac (Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription plan)
- Office LTSC for Mac 2021 (volume license)
- Office 2019 for Mac (retail or volume license)
The same installer package can be used for Office for Mac, Office LTSC for Mac 2021, and Office 2019 for Mac. How you activate the product determines which features are available to your users.
Note
- If you have a Microsoft Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA), review this information.
- Support for Office 2016 for Mac ended on October 13, 2020. For more information, see End of support for Office 2016 for Mac.
- The installer packages for Office LTSC for Mac 2021 and for Office 2019 for Mac aren't available on the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC).
Deploy Office for Mac to users in your organization
Office for Mac uses the Apple Installer technology for installation. That means you can use the software distribution tools that you normally use to deploy software to Mac users. Some of the most common tools are Jamf Pro, Munki, and AutoPkg. You can also use Apple Remote Desktop.
Important
To help improve security, Office for Mac has implemented Apple app sandboxing guidelines. This means that you can't customize the app bundle before or after you deploy Office. Don't add, change, or remove files in an app bundle. For example, even if you don't need the French language resource files for Excel, don't delete them. This change prevents Excel from starting. Even though you can't customize app bundles, you can configure preferences for each app.
Additional deployment information for Office for Mac
Whichever deployment method you decide to use, the following information can help you plan your Office for Mac deployment.
Side-by-side installations
You can't have two different versions of Office installed on a Mac. For example, you can't install Office LTSC for Mac 2021 on the same Mac where Office for Mac (from a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription plan) is already installed.
Deploying individual apps
Installer package files for individual applications, such as Word or Excel, are available to download from the Office Content Delivery Network (CDN). For links to those files, see Most current packages for Office for Mac.
Microsoft Teams
Teams is included as part of the installer packages for Office for Mac and for Office LTSC for Mac 2021. If you don't want Teams included as part of the installation, you can download this installer package, which doesn't include Teams.
Activation
To use Office on a Mac, Office needs to be activated. Before you deploy, review the information about how activation works for Office for Mac.
Internet access
After downloading the installer package, internet access isn’t required to install, activate, or use Office LTSC for Mac 2021 or Office 2019 for Mac.
Uninstalling
If you need to uninstall Office from a Mac, you can follow these steps to completely remove Office. Unfortunately, there is no program to uninstall Office from a Mac automatically.
Upgrade an installation of Office for Mac
You can upgrade an existing installation of Office on a Mac to a newer version without having to uninstall the version already on the Mac. For example, if you want to upgrade a volume licensed version of Office 2019 for Mac to Office LTSC for Mac 2021. Or, if you want to move from a volume licensed version of Office, such as Office LTSC for Mac 2021, to a subscription version of Office for Mac.
Upgrade to Office for Mac (subscription version)
If you're a volume licensed customer of Office LTSC for Mac 2021 or Office 2019 for Mac, you can upgrade to Office for Mac (available with certain Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription plans) without uninstalling your current version. Just follow these steps:
- Install the latest Office updates on each Mac where Office is installed.
- Download and run the license removal tool on each Mac where Office is installed.
- Have users open any Office app and sign in with their Microsoft 365 (or Office 365) account.
For a demo of these steps, and an example of how to automate this process with Jamf Pro, watch this video.
Office 365 Mac Software Download
Upgrade to Office LTSC for Mac 2021 (volume license)
If you're a volume licensed customer, you can upgrade to Office LTSC for Mac 2021 without having to uninstall Office 2019 for Mac. Just follow these steps:
- Install the latest Office updates on each Mac where Office is installed. Office must be updated to at least Version 16.53.
- Download the Volume License (VL) Serializer for Office LTSC for Mac 2021 from the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC).
- Run the VL Serializer on each Mac where Office is installed.