Getting some workable version of Microsoft Office onto my Mac Desktop which has the macOS Catalina v. 10.15.8.

Richard Helzer 0 Reputation points
2026-07-29T05:12:25.69+00:00

Microsoft Word upgraded its platform. However, because of that change, which occurred June 13 of this year, I can no longer edit or create new documents in Word. This is frustrating beyond my ability to put it in polite words. I need to be able to edit time sensitive documents and I cannot anymore. This is a serious issue for me. And when I received the notice about the change I was informed that I could still open up my documents and look at them or print them, nothing else. That is not what I paid for with my subscription.

So what is Microsoft going to do to assist me, given that I have used, purchased and subscribed to Microsoft for at least thirty years? Or am I just screwed?

Richard Helzer

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | MacOS
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  1. John Korchok 235.1K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2026-07-29T16:50:03.9433333+00:00

    Microsoft is abandoning users of older Macs. As alternatives to Office for Mac under Catalina, you can use Word for the web or Google Docs. For desktop software, take a look at open-source LibreOffice, which has good compatibility with Office file formats.

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  2. DaveM121 914.3K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2026-07-29T05:47:25.0066667+00:00

    If you are unable to upgrade your MacOS version on your device, then because your MacOS version is below version 12, you will not be able to use the old workaround to install an older version of the Office apps, that no longer works after that July 13 update.

    The only options remaining would be to use the free version of the Office apps in a web browser, or find an older version of a 3rd party Office suite like LibreOffice that would work on MacOS 10.15.8

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  3. John Korchok 235.1K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2026-07-31T23:01:53.4366667+00:00

    As alternatives to Office for Mac under Catalina, you can use Word for the web for free or Google Docs. For desktop software, take a look at open-source LibreOffice, which has good compatibility with Office file formats.

    If you bought Office 2021 or 2024, or if you subscribe to Microsoft 365, you should be able to install Office on your wife's computer. All of those are running as expected here. Please post the details about what problems you had with that.

    If you received a 0x0 or License not found error, you may be able to fix it with the instructions on this page: Unknown Error 0x0 or License not found error in Microsoft 365 or Office running on macOS

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