Cannot activate Office Apps with High Sierra

Thanks, but unfortunately this did not work for me. Microsoft won't update the version that works with my (older) OS to allow me to activate my subscription. I can access online, but the formatting features are difficult to navigate and I need to be able to work offline too, so looks like I'm going to have to use alternative word processing software. Really hope Microsoft addresses this issue. I'd pay more for a permanent version with 1yr of updates like used to be available.

Sorry, I mean office apps like the ones you’ve mentioned, outlook, word, excel etc. I’m using office 365.

I could force quit everything except Finder where there doesn't seem to be an option to quit, only relaunch. I tried opening Word and nothing has changed - I still cannot activate it.

On Nov 1, 2024 I experienced this EXACT issue with Excel (v16.43 running on High Sierra) suddenly claiming my license needed to be renewed or that it was insufficient. Tried to activate and was unable to enter password due to blank screen as described so well in this thread. It seemed so odd to me because my OTHER High Sierra Excel 16.43 was doing just fine. Then I found this thread and gave up: I turned off my router and went to bed.

Next day (Nov 2, 2024) I turned on my router, had breakfast, logged into my mac user account on the machine where Excel had not been working the night before, and - lo and behold - I was able to edit and save and was not even asked to activate.

Your guess is as good as mine, but I felt compelled to add my experience to this thread for others who might find it and therefore not be completely discouraged.

for Tomboltwood and Twilightmist: when you attempt to activate Office using the email address of your Office account, is that same email account in the Mac Mail tool active? In my case, that email account is inactive but when I insert an active account into the activation screen, I get a response. I cannot test this further because I cannot get the Mail tool to accept the email account and I keep getting the error message that the account name and password could not be verified. You may have more success or the activation issue might be caused by something else entirely, of course, but it's worth checking.

I am also having the exact same problem. Is there an answer to this, or are we now no longer able to use Office programs with Mac OS 10.13.6?

There are numerous references on the internet giving advice on how to activate Office on High Sierra but almost all are dated a few years ago and I suspect that, since then, Microsoft has changed things so that activation cannot be done. I have tried everything that I could find but without success and have now installed Libreoffice - it is not ideal but does provide a means of working. The recent issues of Libreoffice do not work on High Sierra and you will need the archived version of 7.4.0.1 at this link:

https://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/old/

If you do manage to activate Office, please post back here the way you did it.