Office for Mac 2011 Retina display support

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We’re happy to announce that Office for Mac 2011 (version 14.2.4) now supports Retina display for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Text everywhere is incredibly crisp and all key areas of the interface are now sharper than ever. We hope you enjoy this fantastic software experience!


  • Canucker

    YEEEEESSSSSS!! Have been running a patch reported on MacInTouch and it helped but this is da boss.

  • http://www.thegraphicmac.com/ JimD

    What does “all key areas” mean? Did they not update the entire application(s)?

    • Canucker

      It updates a bunch of other bugs too. See link below in my reply to Jay.

    • http://twitter.com/andrewe Andrew Escobar

      All the apps have been updated, but only the majority of those app’s UI have been updated. Hence, “all key areas.”

      Taking Excel as an example, all the text is crystal clear now, all the icons have been updated, but some interface items remain pixilated: search bar, bottom left sheet tabs, bottom right corner, Excel Preferences window.

      Microsoft is missing a few items here and there, but this is a huge improvement. Office for Mac apps really do look great now.

  • Jay

    Why can’t people announce stuff like this after it’s available. Nothing quite as frustration as hearing something’s fixed, only to find out that you can’t have it yet.

    • Canucker

      Jay, it is available but not through the Microsoft Updater (yet).

      Head over to microsoft(dot)com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34690 (if I post a full URL, it has to be moderator approved and the beard seems otherwise occupied with keeping Heineken in business).

  • http://twitter.com/freelebanon Robert Sfeir

    I just updated and see NOTHING different. Word still looks like turd on my retina display. I even downloaded it from the MS site directly with no luck.

    • Canucker

      Robert, you may be seeing a plist update glitch. Close your Office apps and move them out of the MS Office folder (in the Applications folder), e.g. to the desktop (you may have to Cmd-drag them to avoid aliases). Close the folder windows and then re-open them and put the apps from the desktop back into the MS Office folder. Now relaunch and they should be crisp. If you Cmd-I (to get info) on the apps, they should have the “open in low resolution flag unchecked.

      • Ferrite50-spam2012

        This did the trick for me too – thanks!

      • http://twitter.com/freelebanon Robert Sfeir

        that worked, many thanks. Nice job MS…

        • Erik Schwiebert

          Launch Services (an OS component) caches information about apps very agressively. For some reason it is not noticing the app updates on some Macs but does update the cache on others. Canucker’s steps make the Finder ping Launch Services during the file drag so it notices the new version and updates the cache with the setting that says it is OK to launch the Office apps with HiDPI support.

  • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

    Can’t wait for Adobe to update their dozen different versions of common interface elements in Creative Suite.