Microsoft Admits Office Crashes On ‘El Capitan’, No Fix Yet

Microsoft has acknowledged that its Office 2016 and Outlook 2011 software is having trouble operating correctly with the most recent version of Apple’s Mac OS X, but said it doesn’t know when a fix will be available.

“We know that some users of Office 2016 for Mac are experiencing issues as a result of upgrading to Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan,” Microsoft stated. “We are actively working with Apple towards resolution.”

Outlook 2011 crash

The company confirmed separately that Outlook for Mac 2011 running on Mac OS X 10.11 may hang when it tries to synchronise with a server, but didn’t offer a solution apart from recommending that users switch back to Mac OS X 10.10 or an earlier version.

“Microsoft is researching this problem,” the company said in a technical support document.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Microsoft’s remarks follow a flood of user complaints about the issues following the release of El Capitan on September 30. However, the problems with Office 2016 were initially reported on user forums months ago, with one Microsoft support thread describing the issue as early as 10 July, shortly after Apple’s release of the first El Capitan public beta.

Microsoft released an Office 2016 update on September 23 to address the incompatibility issues with El Capitan, but the issues have persisted, according to users.

Apple is currently testing OS X 10.11.1, the first update to El Capitan, which has been distributed to developers and public bea testers.

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