It’s almost hard to believe it’s 2016 and yet Office for Mac customers still can’t rely on password compatibility with Office for Windows.
In Office for Windows we’re used to making password protected documents with long passwords, up to 255 characters long if you’re enthusiastic.
But Office 2016 for Mac (Word and Excel) is limited to making documents with a measly 15 characters tops! This limit should have been removed from Office for Mac last century.
Making a password protected document
In Word 2016 for Mac, you can save a document with a password. The Password field will let you type in a long password but if you do, you’ll get a warning when you leave that field.
Thanks to Office-Watch.com reader Petteri J from Finland for drawing this to our attention.
Opening a password protected document
Office 2016 for Mac will accept documents that already have long (over 15 chars) passwords. Open the document as usual in Word or Excel and you’ll get a prompt for the password.
The password has to be set and saved by Office for Windows. Naturally, you can’t change the password in Office for Mac, except to a password under 15 characters long.
Small Progress
The ability to open ‘long’ password docs in Office 2016 for Mac is a tiny bit of progress over Office 2011 for Mac. Word 2011 and Excel 2011 could not even open a document with a ‘long’ password!
Microsoft admits this limitation with the advice:
“If you want to open the file in Office [2011] for Mac, ask the Windows-based author to adjust the password length.”
Why 15 characters?
Why is Office for Mac limited to 15 characters? Why that number.
The short answer seems to be: History. Way back in the dark ages of the late 20th Century, Word passwords were limited to a maximum 15 characters.
This limit was deep in the code and popped up as bug in Word 2007 for Windows. In Word 2007, there were two places you could set a document password. In one of those places, you could enter up to 255 characters for a password but the other dialog box reverted to the old 15 character limit.
The fix
It’s another example of Office for Mac customers being treated as a lower form of human life by Microsoft. Beats me why Macintosh users don’t complain more.
Office for Mac users need to firmly complain to Microsoft about this and other variations from the Microsoft Office standard. For example, the lack of font embedding in Word for Mac is a major hurdle to document compatibility.
Microsoft hasn’t fixed this problem in Office for Mac because it’s complex and expensive. The company thinks Office for Mac users will tolerate these bugs and inconsistencies. In Office 2016 for Mac they took the cheap development option to just allow long password documents to be opened.
Customers need to raise their voices to force the company to devote the time and effort necessary. Use the forums to make your voice heard and try the feedback icon on top right of Office 2016 for Mac programs.
