1. VBA was part of Office 2004 but, due complexities in the transition from PowerPC to Intel chips, it was left out of Office 2008. The absence of VBA in Office for Mac 2008 means that while you can.
2. The XML-based document format that preserves VBA macro code. VBA macros run in Word 2016 for Mac and Word for Mac 2011, but they do not run in Word 2008. Word Macro-Enabled Template (.dotm) Saves the document as an XML-based template that preserves VBA macro code.
3. May 13, 2008 Microsoft announced that it is bringing back VBA support for the Macintosh version of Office. Support will be coming in the versions after 2008. Here is the text of the announcement: VBA Returns to Future Versions of Office for Mac The Mac BU also announced it is bringing VBA-language support back to the next version of Office for Mac.

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• Office For Mac 2008 Install
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For those who work on Apple Macs there was some good news today. Microsoft announced that it is bringing back VBA support for the Macintosh version of Office. Support will be coming in the versions after 2008. Here is the text of the announcement:

Unlike other versions of Office apps that support VBA, Office 2016 for Mac apps are sandboxed. Sandboxing restricts the apps from accessing resources outside the app container. This affects any add-ins or macros that involve file access or communication across processes.

VBA Returns to Future Versions of Office for Mac
The Mac BU also announced it is bringing VBA-language support back to the next version of Office for Mac. Sharing information with customers as early as possible continues to be a priority for the Mac BU to allow customers to plan for their software needs.Although the Mac BU increased support in Office 2008 with alternate scripting tools such as Automator and AppleScript -- and also worked with MacTech Magazine to create a reference guide, available at http://www.mactech.com/vba-transition-guide -- the team recognizes that VBA-language support is important to a select group of customers who rely on sharing macros across platforms. The Mac BU is always working to meet customers' needs and already is hard at work on the next version of Office for Mac.

Microsoft dropped a major update to Office 2008 for Mac yesterday, and while doing so, made a handful of other major announcements. In addition to announcing that this is the best-selling version of Mac Office to date, the Macintosh Business Unit also plans to bring back support for Visual Basic for Applications to the next major release of the software.

Adopting the Windows update convention and calling the update SP1, the update brings Office 2008 to version 12.1 and offers 'over 1,000 fixes and improvements,' Software Design Lead Erik Schwiebert writes in his blog. Significant improvements were made to all Office apps, including improved printing and file compatibility as well as general performance and stability improvements. Academic and business users will appreciate that Excel brings back custom error bars and tick marks to chart formatting. PowerPoint has also gained object access to its AppleScripting support, and Entourage has received the lion's share of improvements--in particular, improved compatibility with ever-important Exchange servers.

Excel For Mac Vba

Even though SP1 addresses over 1,000 issues, the Mac BU team wasn't able to address every issue reported. Rui Carmo over at Tao of Mac notes that two bugs that have been bugging him weren't covered in SP1. Microsoft has posted a complete list in a knowledge base article, so you can see if any particular issue that is affecting you was addressed. If not, Schwiebert explains that bug reports and user feedback are important in determining which bugs get fixed. 'In addition to fixing the issues we know about internally, we like to have a few months of real user data in hand (crash reports, newsgroup/forum postings, etc) that help us to identify problems that we didn’t know about,' he writes. He even mentions that several members of our own Macintoshian Achaia forum contributed helpful bug reports. Go Mac Ach!

Of course, one issue that tops the complaint list is the absence of VBA scripting support in Office 2008. Schwiebert posted a fairly detailed technical explanation back in 2006 when it was announced that VBA support was being dropped from Mac Office. Even still, many believed that Microsoft was slowly killing Mac Office by dropping the feature, making the upgrade nearly useless to many enterprise customers who rely on macros to perform necessary business functions. Not so, says Mac BU's Group Product Manager, Lead Evangelist Kurt Schmucker. He told Ars, 'We wanted to get Office 2008 out as soon as possible, and a major delay would have been a serious problem. It's a suite, it comes in one box, and if one feature isn't ready you can't ship the whole box.' He adds, 'We hated to have to remove this functionality, but we felt it was a good idea at the time with the available resources.'

The decision was to either not ship an updated Office version, which had already been delayed by moving development to Xcode to make the application a universal binary, or cut VBA support. 'It came down to two issues: time and people,' says Schmucker. But, since the software has shipped, the development team has more time to examine the technical hurdles and add the support back. Additionally, Schmucker tells us, 'Since Mac Office 2008 shipped we've been adding some additional development resources.' Though all the details have not been finalized, VBA support in the next version of Office for Mac will be compatible with Windows versions at least at the level of Office 2004, though hopes are high that compatibility will increase.

Office For Mac 2008 Install

Schwiebert wrote in a new blog yesterday that ever since the announcement that VBA was getting cut, the team had been trying to find a way to bring it back. 'Many of the technical challenges I wrote about then still remain, but for a while now I and several others have been working with a group of people who know a heck of a lot about the internals of VB, and once we determined that we could achieve the revival [of] VB in the new schedule for the next version of Mac Office, we locked it into place on the feature list.' And though an exact release date has not been set, Schwiebert noted that we shouldn't have to wait four years to see the next version of Mac Office: '[M]y understanding is that this next version will be available somewhat sooner than 2012.'

Despite its lack of VBA support, the good news is that Mac Office 2008 is the best-selling version of Office for Mac to date. Craig Eisler, Mac BU's General Manager, said in a statement that 'the velocity of sales for Office 2008 is nearly three times what we saw after the launch of Office 2004.' It's not clear if that means three times the number of copies have been sold, or if those sales are coming from individuals or corporate customers. When asked for clarification, Kurt Schmucker told us, 'We don't give out details of financials as far as units sold or anything like that.' My guess is that the 'Home & Student Edition,' which is licensed for three different computers and sells for just $149, represents a large portion of those sales.

Office 2008 For Mac Download

Still, no matter how you slice it, all this is excellent news for both the Mac BU and Mac Office users everywhere. The re-addition of VBA support will keep enterprise customers happy, and the continued efforts to squash bugs and improve performance and reliability of the suite will keep the rest of us sated. And since happy customers mean more sales, the bean counters for the Mac BU will be happy too. If, at this point, you're still not happy, though, be sure to let the Mac BU know. Even if you're hard to please, the Mac BU will certainly give it the old college try to make you happy, too.