Minor Update of Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Fixes Licensing Bug

[MacRumors]

Microsoft yesterday released a new 14.3.1 update for Office for Mac 2011 to fix a bug in the licensing alerts, which caused Office applications to claim they were unlicensed. The problem was seemingly introduced during a previous bug-fix update.

Stability is improved
This update fixes an issue that may cause Office 2011 applications to report a problem with Licensing even though the applications continue to run unaffected.

The update is non-critical, as all Office applications continue to work despite the spurious alerts.

The the new 14.3.1 update comes roughly two weeks after Microsoft released Service Pack 3 (14.3.0) for Office 2011, delivering a number of other bug fixes.

Microsoft also launched its Office 365 subscription packages late last month alongside Office 2013 for Windows, but Office 365 subscribers needing Mac versions remain on Office 2011 as Microsoft's Mac versions typically lag their Windows counterparts by 12-18 months.

Article Link: Minor Update of Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Fixes Licensing Bug

[Avatarshark]

Problem with mac, small updates requires download of 100mb+ files. I know it has to do with the package system of the applications on the mac platform but that needs to be looked at in future versions of OS XI or X

[iheartiphone4]

I just use pages, numbers, and keynote. They work seemlessly between my iPad and Mac mini and its made my life much easier since switching from MicroSucks. Oops... Spelling error.

[bushido]

Originally Posted by iheartiphone4

I just use pages, numbers, and keynote. They work seemlessly between my iPad and Mac mini and its made my life much easier since switching from MicroSucks. Oops... Spelling error.

unless u need to open those files on campus computers and everything is messed up, if it does even open in the first place

[ghostface147]

Originally Posted by iheartiphone4

I just use pages, numbers, and keynote. They work seemlessly between my iPad and Mac mini and its made my life much easier since switching from MicroSucks. Oops... Spelling error.

I've tried pages, numbers and keynote and don't like them. I prefer to stick to MS products and their better compatibility than Apple's products.

[bjm2660]

Actually, for me, the recent update broke my entire Office 2011 suite. I was not able to use the programs as I was blocked by an error message. I got so fed up on one of my computers that I completely removed Office and have been turning to other products for my note taking (Evernote) and document writing (Pages).

I don't mean to be finicky, but if it doesn't work 100% of the time, 24/7, 365 days a year, I'm not interested. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

[pimentoLoaf]

Numbers is a dog of a spreadsheet. Kudos if you managed to actually get the thing to jump through hoops, but MS Excel is so easy to use with a wealth of features and a phenomenal user base with tremendous 3rd-party support worldwide there just isn't any reason to use anything else. Numbers seems to have been tacked-on at the last minute.

[Pentad]

Originally Posted by iheartiphone4

I just use pages, numbers, and keynote. They work seemlessly between my iPad and Mac mini and its made my life much easier since switching from MicroSucks. Oops... Spelling error.

Good Luck with that in the real world... I want to hear how Pages and Numbers works when you need to exchange documents with people running Office. How does numbers handle that Excel document that has extensive custom macros or how does your awesome Pages resume look to the recruiter in Word?

Pages and Numbers work great for very light documents but are novelties at best. When you start comparing features they quickly become toys compared to Office...

-P

[canadianpj]

Originally Posted by Pentad

Good Luck with that in the real world... I want to hear how Pages and Numbers works when you need to exchange documents with people running Office. How does numbers handle that Excel document that has extensive custom macros or how does your awesome Pages resume look to the recruiter in Word?

Pages and Numbers work great for very light documents but are novelties at best. When you start comparing features they quickly become toys compared to Office...

-P

I've always written my resumes in Pages and if you know what you're doing or take three seconds to read the screens it is fine. The resumes look fine and open exactly the same as they do in Pages. So, I'm just fine in the "Real World".

[Macrolido]

Originally Posted by iheartiphone4

I just use pages, numbers, and keynote. They work seemlessly between my iPad and Mac mini and its made my life much easier since switching from MicroSucks. Oops... Spelling error.

Pages is superior than Word by far, but its incompatibility is a great problem.

[hypnos tene]

Originally Posted by Pentad

Good Luck with that in the real world... I want to hear how Pages and Numbers works when you need to exchange documents with people running Office. How does numbers handle that Excel document that has extensive custom macros or how does your awesome Pages resume look to the recruiter in Word?

Pages and Numbers work great for very light documents but are novelties at best. When you start comparing features they quickly become toys compared to Office...

-P

I beg to differ. I wrote one master's thesis and one PhD dissertation in Pages, as well as compiled my department's grant results a number of time. The program had no problems coping with hundreds of pages and thousands of footnotes in one document. In comparison, working on similarly sized files in Word is a pain (and prone to crashing).

The program's only current hurdle is the current exporting bug in which Font; bold gets converted to Font bold; (easily fixed though).

Numbers is no Excel though, no discussion here.

[Patriot24]

The compatibility issues are frustrating, indeed.

A great deal of my professional life is spent working on presentations. Keynote absolutely slays PowerPoint in every way imaginable, but I can't afford to use it since it can't export .pptx (only .ppt) and features like Magic Move don't map well in the PowerPoint universe.

Sometimes it isn't about what is better, rather what has the highest market share. It is a microcosm of Windows/OS X of old.

[sshhoott]

And that, my friends, is why you don't rush out to install updates from Microsoft right when they are released.

[ghostface147]

Originally Posted by sshhoott

And that, my friends, is why you don't rush out to install updates from Microsoft right when they are released.

Or even Apple at times. Or Google, or Adobe, or Oracle...

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Uuuuug MS, it's 2013. Why do I have to install these updates in order. Can't just install the 14.3.1 update. Have to download and install the 14.2.3 update on 14.2.2. Then have to install the 14.3 update on top of that so you can install the 14.3.1 update. I could maybe understand 14.3 as it's claimed to be a Service Pack but why the service pack can't update directly to 14.3 from 14.2.2 and needs to be 14.2.3 is beyond me.

[allebone]

Originally Posted by ghostface147

I've tried pages, numbers and keynote and don't like them. I prefer to stick to MS products and their better compatibility than Apple's products.

Because they've chosen to design in a proprietary nature does NOT mean they are MORE compatible. iWork is technically more compatible, but it's limited by the volatile nature of MS products.

[iThinkIt]

Originally Posted by iheartiphone4

I just use pages, numbers, and keynote. They work seemlessly between my iPad and Mac mini and its made my life much easier since switching from MicroSucks. Oops... Spelling error.

ROTFLOL... I do the same. Haven't had the need for MS orifice (Is my spell check working? ) in a long time.

[hondje]

Does anyone know if this update works with Endnote?

[cmwade77]

I'm am amazed everyone is talking about which product is better rather than the basics that these licensing schemes only hurt the honest people.

The pirates will find a way around them, but you and me that buy the appropriate number of licenses are stuck with all of these problems, unless we use the same techniques that those that pirate software do and in the end the licensing systems encourage piracy.

I am also surprised that no one has mentioned other very viable alternatives, such as Google Docs, LibreOffice, Open Office, Neo Office, Corel's suite (what ever it is called this week) that offers office software, etc.

[ScottNWDW]

I am finding that I am using Microsoft Office less and less. Since getting my Mac almost 2 years ago I started using Numbers, Pages and Keynote. I do have Word, Excel and Power Point on my Mac as well. I also use an iPad 3, iPad mini and an iPhone 5.

I rarely have a need for a presentation so I rarely use PowerPoint/KeyNote, but they are nice to have. Since I really haven't used either extensively in the past few years I can't say which is better.

I do prefer the features and speed of Excel, but at the same time I like the ease of compatibility between my devices when I use Numbers. Therefore I find myself using Numbers more and more frequently. I input something and it updates immediately through the iCloud to all my devices. Not so much the case with Excel.

As for the writing, I like Pages a little better because it is more freeform than Word. I recently put in for a transfer at work and did my resume in both Pages and Word and the Pages version looked better and I submitted that and there was no problems with them opening the document in Word. I did get the transfer so I guess they liked it. I can also whip out a great looking document in no time in Pages, but with Word I have to fight to get the graphics the way I want them, and a lot of the other formatting issues are just a pain. With Pages it's just point, click move and everything falls in place the way I want it. Simple, and easy.

When I use the same fonts that are on all the devices, my documents and everything looks perfect across all three types of devices, iPhone, iPad and Mac. It's the way it should be.

I cannot understand why, after the amount of iPads and iPhones that have been sold to date, why Microsoft has not issued an iOS version of Office, or something that will work with at least the iPad. Their web based versions are junk. As a Mac user I see no reason whatsoever to upgrade to their Office 365 if it won't even enhance my ability to use even the web based versions. They claim you can use any device with Office 365, but look closely and you won't see any iOS device mentioned.

I do hope that Apple updates the iWork suite and soon. There are things I like about Excel that aren't in Numbers and there are things about Numbers that aren't in Excel, so it's a give and take. Sure Numbers needs to be speeded up a bit, but in the grand scheme of things and the way I work, Microsoft's Office is slowly becoming a thing of the past in my world. As I use Numbers more and more I am liking it better.

Shame too, since all three of the main Office apps (Excel Word and Power Point ) were all originally written for the Mac and later ported to Windows.

[JackieTreehorn]

Originally Posted by ghostface147

I've tried pages, numbers and keynote and don't like them. I prefer to stick to MS products and their better compatibility than Apple's products.

Excel is for my secretary, Keynote > Powerpoint by a landslide and Word and Pages are in the same bracket as far as I am concerned.

[weckart]

Originally Posted by OldSchoolMacGuy

Uuuuug MS, it's 2013. Why do I have to install these updates in order. Can't just install the 14.3.1 update. Have to download and install the 14.2.3 update on 14.2.2. Then have to install the 14.3 update on top of that so you can install the 14.3.1 update. I could maybe understand 14.3 as it's claimed to be a Service Pack but why the service pack can't update directly to 14.3 from 14.2.2 and needs to be 14.2.3 is beyond me.

I was on 14.2.3. Updater pulled down 14.3.1 straight away without needing 14.3.0 installed first. No jumping through any hoops here.

[Crazy John]

Originally Posted by bjm2660

Actually, for me, the recent update broke my entire Office 2011 suite. I was not able to use the programs as I was blocked by an error message. I got so fed up on one of my computers that I completely removed Office and have been turning to other products for my note taking (Evernote) and document writing (Pages).

I don't mean to be finicky, but if it doesn't work 100% of the time, 24/7, 365 days a year, I'm not interested. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

My Office 2011 won't open either now. I don't even get the error message you mentioned. Damn you Microsoft!

Any suggestions?

[MacRumorUser]

Those with Office365 error messages after 14.3.0 please update to the 14.3.1

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloa...4156F2D#viewer

[JoeRito]

Originally Posted by Avatarshark

Problem with mac, small updates requires download of 100mb+ files.

Agreed... 105mb download, 319mb installed.... that's a weighty update for something MS classifies as "minor".... Seriously, they need to improve the responsiveness of the Mac version, its so slow, even on these beefeater Macs we use.