Is Microsoft Word for Mac accessible?

By Sarah, 4 February, 2015

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Good afternoon. is Microsoft Word accessible on the Mac? Thank you.

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Comments

By Declan on Sunday, February 15, 2015 - 05:29

No it isn't accessible! Microsoft have said it will never be. I use zoom on the mac, and it consistantly
doesn't track the courser when zoomed in. I won't use MS Office on principle because of this on the mac. The only word processor that does track the courser on the mac is Pages, as far as I know. LibreOffice doesn't track the courser either, but at least The Document Foundation that makes Libre doesn't have the "No accessibility" policy!

By Lakshmi on Friday, May 15, 2015 - 05:29

Hello Friends:

Another annoying question and it looks it has been asked several times. Since I am new to MAC and I always thought MS Word documents created in Windows could be read with Pages, it was surprising and a bit unnerving when I tried opening a file on MSW I created in my Windows PC using Pages. If this wouldn't work, what is the alternative. Thanks in advance.

By Maldalain on Friday, May 15, 2015 - 05:29

Well, you can save the file in different format. RTF works as well as other traditional MSW extensions such as .DOCX and .DOC.

By Justin on Friday, May 15, 2015 - 05:29

Yeah, thats really the only option. With pages, the default is to save files as a .pages file. These files don't work on PC's so you'll have to convert them to a docx file or other MSWord file. And, no MS Office is not, nor will it ever, be usable on the mac by access tech. Vo doesn't read squat. Trust me, I've tried it like 5 years ago.If your gonna do word processing, please stick with pages or text edit. Text edit does fine. you can write/read MS office docs. Plus if ya have numbers and keynote, you can read and prepare other MS office things, spread sheets and power point presentations respectively.
HTH and good luck!

By Andy B. on Friday, May 15, 2015 - 05:29

The last few posters need to perform better research on the subject before posting invalid comments. If you look up Office 2016 preview, then try it out, you will find that the entire office suite is completely usable with AT devices including Voiceover. In fact, Microsoft is looking for AT users to give them comments on the usability of Office. I have had some comments implemented already. In the end, whatever you do, make sure you are not posting false information about something.

By Justin on Friday, May 15, 2015 - 05:29

Oh no, It wasn't false a couple years ago. It's nice that it works now, but Pages/text edit works on my end 100%. If it was false, then sorry. But the MS Office I used a few years ago was unusable with VO, so I put my thoughts from a few years back. Like I said, it's nice that 2016 office stuff works now, but it's not for my needs.

By Andy B. on Friday, May 15, 2015 - 05:29

Your comment that states Office never has, nor will ever be accessible is a false statement. I understand you were originally talking about Office from 5 years ago. However, before making a statement claiming that Office will never work with AT devices, it is better to find out the current status before claiming all inclusive statements.

By Nicolai Svendsen on Friday, May 15, 2015 - 05:29

In reply to by Andy B.

Hello!

I was about to say that Office 2016 has made huge leaps in terms of accessibility. It was a shame back when it was Office 2011, but it is quite a bit better now.

I personally have not tried it, but I've heard very good things about it from friends who have.

I'm about to try this now at last.

I actually used to rip off Office and just install the fonts provided with the Microsoft Office installer without installing Office itself.

That is a handy little trick to know if you don't want to use Word, or you can't for accessibility reasons. I did that to provide more support when Pages fonts were not compatible with Word. This helped a lot.