My Macbook Air (circa 2012, still running Mojave. Yes, I am a dinosaur.) got damaged during a recent power outage. I have it fully backed up am replacing it with a new Macbook Air. I kept the old Mac on Mojave because I really only use it for Zoom meetings and bigger Word or Excel work and I had MS Office 2011 installed on it as it is not supported beyond Mojave. For everything else, I use my iPad and I have Office Suite on that which gives me adequate spreadsheets and Word docs that are compatible with Office. But I do need the Mac to have Word and Excel.

So the question is, how do I get Word and Excel on the new Mac without having to pay a monthly subscription? I paid for Office 2011 years ago and it peeves me to lose it but my research tells me I am out of luck and they won't just give me the new version for free because I already paid for it years ago. Is there anyway to get Word and Excel without a monthly/yearly fee? Are there free or cheap versions that actually work? I need to keep all of my documents and spreadsheets and still be able open and use them so whatever I go with, I need to be able to migrate those files from old to new Mac easily and have them work. I like Word and Excel, they do everything I need and I know how to use them. Clearly I am not terribly tech-savvy so any help is appreciated.

I think you can (still) buy MS Office without a subscription
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/micr...4/cfq7ttc0pqvj
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/...y%20it%20again.

Those links are courtesy of the Google Machine.

As for "need to be able to migrate those files from old to new Mac easily" I know there are all sorts of transfer services out there. But, at the end of the day, what I've found most reliable is just moving my entire Mac "Documents" folder (or wherever you keep ... everything on your Mac) onto a portable SSD drive and then copying over to the new Mac's hard drive. I've never tried to "restore" from a backup of an old machine's backup onto the new machine.

Perhaps nowadays, Apple even offers some sort of "transfer" service either during initial setup of your machine - at home or in store.

Thanks, I will look into that. When I searched, I could only find the option of Office365 with a monthly subscription. I will look harder.

I do back up to a portable SSD (and to the cloud) but I have also never restored from it. I don't know how the "old" docx files from my 2011 Word program will work with the new Office program. I guess I will find out. Apple does generally make it easy. I just got a new iPad and all you do is hold the new device near the previous one and it seamlessly transfers. I don't think it is quite that easy with a Mac though.

I do not do Office 365. MS still sells the non-sub mode but doesn't like to announce it. They want us to pay monthly. You can still buy it, and even sometimes find licensed deals on places like Groupon (yes, legit, but do your due diligence. I did it a year or so ago and MS recognized the Office for Mac license and I had zero issues, but I did fully vet it before hand). I also just got a new MB Air and will be buying another copy. I detest online subscription models of anything, so I suppose I am a dinosaur too!

I also detest subscription anything. I did a search earlier and found some Groupon postings but it seems a bit too good to be true at $35. How do you know it is legit? https://www.groupon.com/deals/world-...-llc-mycodes24

Whatever link I used when I did mine, I ran the seller through several searches and also asked how it could be that price, etc. They are large commercial licenses. That's the bottom line. At the end of the day, the way I know it's legal is that I also ran it through Microsoft, which validated my purchase of a licensed copy. Note I am speaking in general because I am not sure which seller you are referencing as compared to the one I used, but a bit of research on the seller etc. should do it.

I'll add that I thought to do this after seeing how Lifehacker is always advertising "you can buy a licensed copy of _____ for only $30 this week only" and takes you to their affiliate. I bought an MS Office license there once also, BUT it was almost out of date within 3 months. But that made me wonder if there were other wholesalers. I ended up on a bunny trail. I definitely found some unlicensed versions as well, but as soon as I started running those through searches and reviews it became clear who was legit. To me, it's worth an hour or two of front end research to own the copy.

Groupon is good about refunds and/or credits if a seller scams you too. I do plan to buy a new copy this weekend for my new computer, so if I remember, once I look again, I will report back!

Thanks! I appreciate the help and would love to hear who you end up buying with.

when I looked for a non monthly version of Office a couple of years ago, I don't think it existed for personal users (only for corporate users) - great that it's now available.

when I did a restore from backup a few years ago in an Apple shop - I think they deprecated the MacOS on the target machine, and then did the transfer for me.

it was a few years ago, so my memory may be faulty!

There are a lot of license sellers based in Europe. They buy licenses (mostly Microsoft products) from companies that are downsizing or going out of business and resell them for a fraction of what Microsoft charges individual users. Microsoft tried to crack down on it, but one of the resellers beat them in court so the practice is legal, at least in the EU. Prices vary somewhat but €50ish for the Office suite is pretty common. I've never had any issues over the past ~8 years buying from at least one Belgian reseller and one German one for myself and lots of friends.

There are also a lot of sketchy warez sites out there, mostly based in SE Asia, so it pays to pay attention. I'm not here to discuss the ethics of software piracy, but paying for pirated software is stupid regardless of your ethical views on the matter.

Migration assistant, but you need the old mac to be running or have a time machine backup. If you are using iCloud to backup your Documents folder you can set that up on the new machine easily also.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102613

If none of that is feasible, copying over the Documents folder from the backup drive would also be fine.

-David

Why buy a new laptop that will not run the software you need/want? There are several online resellers that trade in older, refurbished machines that will happily run Mojave and compatible versions of Office. For the MacBook Air, you would need a 2019 or earlier model to run Mojave. I have bought several refurbished laptops (also a Mac Mini and a 'trash can' Mac Pro) from OWC (macsales.com). They currently have units for sale that would meet your specs for <$300.

IF (could be a big if) you still have your Office 2011 installation media and serial number and the means to 'roll back' the installed OS on a 'new' used compatible laptop to Mojave (MacOS 10.14) this could be your solution. Note that you might also need to buy (or borrow) an external DVD drive and/or a USB-C compatible thumb drive (or adapter).

My other suggestion would be to see if your word processing and spreadsheet needs might be met by Apple's complimentary Pages and Numbers apps. While the feature set of neither completely overlaps those of Word and Excel, they are quite robust and should be able to open and save documents in the Office 2011 formats. When opening Office docs, Pages and Numbers generally display an info box stating any MS specific functions that don't directly translate and any workarounds or modifications needed for compatability.

Finally, if you're a dinosaur I'm a trilobite. I keep an old first generation 2006 Mac Pro tower running primarily to use Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 (because I too hate subscriptions), rip DVDs and archive photos. It never connects to the Internet these days since the last MacOS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) security update was more than 10 years ago but it still boots up quickly and runs flawlessly.

Thanks, that is reassuring, I have both a Time Machine backup to an external drive and also using iCloud for documents. I got the new Mac yesterday so now i just need to get it going.

It is part of an insurance claim from the big storm and power outage we had here in Hawaii. I'm not sure how they would feel about a refurb'd machine. Mojave and other older OS have their own issues too. But it is a good thought and one I hadn't considered. I know I burned a CD or DVD (remember those?) of the Office 2011 way back when and I think I wrote the key on the case. But do I still have it? Good question. I did upgrade my current Mac beyond Mojave at one point and realized my Office 2011 no longer worked. That is when I learned about 32-bit vs 64-bit and that Office 2011 would not be getting the upgrade to 64-bit. So then I had to learn how to roll back my laptop to Mojave and leave it there. I had to wipe it first I think (or maybe it just happened) which is why I was glad I had burned that CD years before and still had the external CD drive (via USB) from my first-ever prehistoric Macbook. That was scary and I was resigned to losing everything but fortunately it worked. The Googles can be a wonderful teaching tool. I don't think the new machines even have USB-A drives anymore, do they? But like I said, Mojave comes with it's own issues such as I can't download certain apps that I use (like Office Suite that I use on my iPad) as Mojave is just too ancient. Maybe the old Mac can be salvaged somehow once I have the time to deal with it. But I need something to use now so I bit the bullet and got the new MacBook Air. It also occurred to me last night that insurance should cover the Office 2024 purchase as it was on the old machine and I cannot transfer it over.

The power surge you mentioned may have fried the Air's power supply but the SSD card can be removed and installed into an external drive enclosure (available online) for archival storage or use with your new laptop.

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MAU3ENVOY12/

The magsafe and IO board for the 2012 MacBook Air is a separate module apart from the logic board, it is probably repairable.