Then in 2017, Apple finally made all three apps free on the Mac App Store for Mac, iPad, and iPhone. I have never found a lot of use for the Pages app for iOS, but it can be handy for a quick edit or writing when traveling on your iPhone or iPad.
Some of us are old enough to recall life before word processors. (It wasn’t that long ago.) Consider this sentence:
How did we survive in the days before every last one of us had access to word processors and computers on our respective desks?
That’s not a great sentence — it’s kind of wordy and repetitious. The following sentence is much more concise:
It’s hard to imagine how any of us got along without word processors.
The purpose of this mini-editing exercise is to illustrate the splendor of word processing. Had you produced these sentences on a typewriter instead of a computer, changing even a few words would hardly seem worth it. You would have to use correction fluid to erase your previous comments and type over them. If things got really messy, or if you wanted to take your writing in a different direction, you would end up yanking the sheet of paper from the typewriter in disgust and begin pecking away anew on a blank page.
Word processing lets you substitute words at will, move entire blocks of text around with panache, and apply different fonts and typefaces to the characters. You won’t even take a productivity hit swapping typewriter ribbons in the middle of a project.
Before running out to buy Microsoft Word (or another industrial-strength and expensive) word processing program for your Mac, remember that Apple includes a respectable word processor with OS X. The program is TextEdit, and it call s the Applications folder home.
The first order of business when using TextEdit (or pretty much any word processor) is to create a new document. There’s really not much to it. It’s about as easy as opening the program itself. The moment you do so, a window with a large blank area on which to type appears.
Have a look around the window. At the top, you see Untitled because no one at Apple is presumptuous enough to come up with a name for your yet-to-be-produced manuscript.
Notice the blinking vertical line at the upper-left edge of the screen, just below the ruler. That line, called the insertion point, might as well be tapping out Morse code for “start typing here.”
Indeed, you have come to the most challenging point in the entire word processing experience, and it has nothing to do with technology. The burden is on you to produce clever, witty, and inventive prose, lest all that blank space go to waste.
Okay, got it? At the blinking insertion point, type with abandon. Type something original like this:
It was a dark and stormy night
If you typed too quickly, you may have accidentally produced this:
It was a drk and stormy nihgt
Fortunately, your amiable word processor has your best interests at heart. See the dotted red line below drk and nihgt? That’s TextEdit’s not-so-subtle way of flagging a likely typo. (This presumes that you’ve left the default Check Spelling as You Type activated in TextEdit Preferences.)
You can address these snafus in several ways. You can use the computer’s Delete key to wipe out all the letters to the left of the insertion point. (Delete functions like the backspace key on the Smith Coronayou put out to pasture years ago.) After the misspelled word has been quietly sent to Siberia, you can type over the space more carefully. All traces of your sloppiness disappear.
Delete is a wonderfully handy key. You can use it to eliminate a single word such as nihgt. But in this little case study, you have to repair drk too. And using Delete to erase drk means sacrificing and and stormy as well. That’s a bit of overkill.
Use one of the following options instead:
Now try this helpful remedy. Right-click anywhere on the misspelled word. A list appears with suggestions. Single-click the correct word and, voilà, TextEdit instantly replaces the mistake. Be careful in this example not to choose dork.
-->Office for Mac that comes with a Microsoft 365 subscription is updated on a regular basis to provide new features, security updates, and non-security updates. The following information is primarily intended for IT professionals who are deploying Office for Mac to the users in their organizations.
Note
The following table lists the most current packages for the Office suite and for the individual applications. The Office suite includes all the individual applications, such as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. All packages are 64-bit only. The build date is listed in parentheses, in a YYMMDD format, after the version number. The install package is used if you don't have the application already installed, while the update package is used to update an existing installation.
To view release notes, see Release notes.
Version 16.42 (20101102)
Application | Download links | SHA-256 hash for install package |
---|---|---|
Office suite (with Teams) | Install package | 8AC425F0E31869B32C323F4349FB48E9B1C3A114B77EA68897D97C50D9B8BECB |
Office suite (without Teams) | Install package | 5FA1084BD240BF10FAAF94D908492939807EAD8E014582DCB2ADE7ECC484276B |
Word | Install package Update package | 21C54A78343B106A93FFD176130DEB9A6C9154F56EB58446FC27192D1E191995 |
Excel | Install package Update package | 2235E4FE0741CE013777E2B6811AD9EFF738F9A724860FBA0DFD31976BF96E62 |
PowerPoint | Install package Update package | EAF6B82C2042BD4D026779CEB4A58E0B92C8E320A9797C77CA3A588FD94B19EB |
Outlook | Install package Update package | 566A1BD7AD446FCDD31156EBCA3FBD7F8F8BB2EFBCC8F3217CB55AA16A586420 |
OneNote | Update package | Not applicable |
The following table provides release history information and download links for Office for Mac. The table is ordered by release date, with the most recent release date listed first. The build date is listed in parentheses, in a YYMMDD format, after the version number. All releases after August 22, 2016 are 64-bit only. All releases prior to August 22, 2016 are 32-bit only.
Note
Download links are only provided for the most recent releases.
Release date | Version | Install package | Update packages |
---|---|---|---|
October 13, 2020 | 16.42 (20101102) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
September 15, 2020 | 16.41 (20091302) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
August 11, 2020 | 16.40 (20081000) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
July 14, 2020 | 16.39 (20071300) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
June 16, 2020 | 16.38 (20061401) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
May 12, 2020 | 16.37 (20051002) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
April 21, 2020 | 16.36 (20041300) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | |
April 14, 2020 | 16.36 (20041300) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote | |
March 10, 2020 | 16.35 (20030802) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
February 11, 2020 | 16.34 (20020900) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
January 14, 2020 | 16.33 (20011301) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
December 10, 2019 | 16.32 (19120802) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
November 12, 2019 | 16.31 (19111002) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
October 15, 2019 | 16.30 (19101301) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
September 18, 2019 | 16.29.1 (19091700) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint | |
September 10, 2019 | 16.29 (19090802) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
August 13, 2019 | 16.28 (19081202) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
July 16, 2019 | 16.27 (19071500) | Office suite (with Teams) Office suite (without Teams) | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote |
June 11, 2019 | 16.26 (19060901) | ||
May 14, 2019 | 16.25 (19051201) | ||
April 16, 2019 | 16.24 (19041401) | ||
March 27, 2019 | 16.23.1 (19032603) | ||
March 12, 2019 | 16.23.0 (19030902) | ||
February 20, 2019 | 16.22 (19022000) | ||
January 24, 2019 | 16.21 (19011700) | ||
January 16, 2019 | 16.21 (19011500) | ||
December 11, 2018 | 16.20 (18120801) | ||
November 13, 2018 | 16.19 (18110915) | ||
October 16, 2018 | 16.18 (18101400) | ||
September 11, 2018 | 16.17 (18090901) | ||
August 14, 2018 | 16.16 (18081201) | ||
July 10, 2018 | 16.15 (18070902) | ||
June 13, 2018 | 16.14.1 (18061302) | ||
June 12, 2018 | 16.14.0 (18061000) | ||
May 24, 2018 | 16.13.1 (18052304) | ||
May 23, 2018 | 16.13.1 (18052203) | ||
May 15, 2018 | 16.13.0 (18051301) | ||
April 11, 2018 | 16.12.0 (18041000) | ||
March 19, 2018 | 16.11.1 (18031900) | ||
March 13, 2018 | 16.11.0 (18031100) | ||
February 13, 2018 | 16.10.0 (18021001) | ||
January 26, 2018 | 16.9.1 (18012504) | ||
January 18, 2018 | 16.9.0 (18011602) | ||
December 12, 2017 | 15.41.0 (17120500) | ||
November 14, 2017 | 15.40.0 (17110800) | ||
October 10, 2017 | 15.39.0 (17101000) | ||
September 12, 2017 | 15.38.0 (17090200) | ||
August 15, 2017 | 15.37.0 (17081500) | ||
July 21, 2017 | 15.36.1 (17072101) | ||
July 11, 2017 | 15.36.0 (17070200) | ||
June 16, 2017 | 15.35.0 (17061600) | ||
June 13, 2017 | 15.35.0 (17061000) | ||
May 16, 2017 | 15.34.0 (17051500) | ||
April 11, 2017 | 15.33.0 (17040900) | ||
March 14, 2017 | 15.32.0 (17030901) | ||
February 16, 2017 | 15.31.0 (17021600) | ||
January 11, 2017 | 15.30.0 (17010700) |