Office 2016

[honestone]

I am currently using the latest version of Office 2011, and the programs I use are Outlook, Word, and Excel. Everything is working fine, and in fact, when TechTool Pro comes out with their update for Sierra compatibility, that is when I'll upgrade from El Capitan (OS 10.11.6) to Sierra (OS 10.12.1). I am not anticipating any issues with that upgrade.

I have recently obtained Office 2016 for the Mac, and in fact I have also downloaded the latest update for it, V15.26. Given that Microsoft will most likely stop supporting Office 2011 sometime in the "near" future, I will want to install Office 2016. Again, the programs I'll use after that installation will be Outlook, Word, and Excel. I'm not very concerned about Word and Excel, but I want to insure no issues when installing Outlook. I did see some links about "importing stuff" from Outlook 2011, and I suspect I'll need all the necessary "pieces" to set up Outlook 2016 for use with my ISP, Comcast. I am just wondering if there is anything I need to be aware of when I do such a transition.

If anyone has done such a transition, I would appreciate any information, advice, etc.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hey honestone,

I have limited experience with Office 2016, as I don't have any Microsoft products, or Adobe for that matter, on my personal Macs any longer. I used Entourage way back in the Office 2008 and earlier days. I gave up on it when iWork and Thunderbird were released, and I had access to Macs at work that I could test things on to support folks with issues.

From what I gather, it is pretty straightforward to import Office 2011 identities into Outlook 2016. I took a quick look at this article: Import email messages, contacts, and other items into Outlook 2016 for Mac, and the main thing is to perform the import into an empty 2016 identity. It does note that You cannot import Outlook on the Web calendar and contacts, iCloud calendar and contacts, or Google calendar and contacts at this time.

As I know that you do very thoroughly, when you are ready to make the jump, make sure your SuperDuper! backup is up to date.

If I hear of any glaring issues or good tips, I will let you know.

C

 

[honestone]

Thanks Cory. As always, your insights are certainly helpful!

I actually do not do much Calendar stuff, and nothing at all with the Web calendar nor iCloud, nor Google "stuff".

Yes, you are certainly correct about doing the transition after I make my SuperDuper! backups. I will most likely do the transition after one of my usual Saturday disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs, and backup, processing. As it is, my first project will be upgrading to Sierra. But, TechTool Pro has not been updated yet for OS 10.12 compatibility, and there is an excellent chance that OS 10.12.1, the first upgrade to Sierra, will be out by the end of the month. So, I suspect that I will not do the Sierra upgrade until the end of October/beginning of November.

 

[honestone]

Well, I successfully installed Office 2016 on both of my Macs, including the application of the latest update, V15.27. As usual, I first went through my weekly disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs, and backup processing before proceeding with the installation. Surprisingly, things went very smoothly. The individual apps (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.) do take up considerably more disk space than the corresponding apps in Office 2011, but I have plenty of space on both of my SSDs.

The "transition" from Outlook 2011 to Outlook 2016 was especially impressive. When I launched Outlook 2016, it was "smart enough" to recognize stuff for Outlook 2011, and it imported everything (account/isp settings, EMails, etc.) perfectly! I connected with my isp flawlessly.

I am wondering about one thing, though. Office 2011 makes a folder within the /Users/Username/Documents area called "Microsoft User Data", and within that folder are two the ones, Office 2011 Identities and Office 2011 AutoRecovery. Within the Office 2011 Identities is a folder entitled "Main Identity", and within it is the Data Records Folder and the Database. I believe the Database contains all the EMails, and as part of my weekly disk cleanup/maintenance/repair, and backup, processing, I launch Outlook 2011 while holding down the Option key, and I am given the option of rebuilding that Database. When that happens, deleted EMails are permanently removed.

My question is what is the situation with Outlook 2016 (or Office 2016, for that matter)?

One other thing to note: I am still using the latest version of El Capitan, 10.11.6, but from what I have read, V15.27 of Office 2016 is compatible withSierra, OS 10.12.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Glad to hear it went well and easily.

Not sure about the rebuild of the database in Outlook 2016. I do not use Outlook at all, as I stated previously. Maybe a Google search would turn up something?

We are running Office 2016 on a MBA/MBP/iMac/mini machines with OS X Yosemite/El Capitan and macOS Sierra, and it seems to be working just fine so far on all of them...as well as can be expected.

C

 

[honestone]

I did try and do a search about any "kind" of database maintained by Office 2016, but no luck. However, I was able to find out how to permanently delete "deleted" EMails. It just involves holding down the Control Key when deleting EMails that are in the Deleted folder. (There is also a similar procedure to doing something like that when one has accumulated deleted EMails (not visible) still in the Deleted Items folder).