Setup your Mac for Mac Office

When you have installed Mac Office 2016 or higher on your Mac you will notice that folder locations to important folders, like the Template or Startup folder are not so easy to find for a basic Excel user. And if you use VBA code or add-ins in that Save or Open files you will notice that it is possible that it will ask you permission to access the file or folder (Grant File Access Prompt), this is because of Apple’s sandbox requirements. To avoid this there are some other locations on your Mac that you can use, but where are they ?, more info you will find on this webpage Problems with Apple’s sandbox requirements

The legacy "MacScript" VB Command is severely limited by Apple’s sandbox requirements: it will not work correctly in most situations in Office 2016 and higher, we need to use a new method and a new approach with AppleScriptTask but if you want to use this you must create some folders manual explained on this webpage How to use AppleScriptTask in Mac Office
 
After you have installed Mac Office you can use the script to :
  • Make a folder for your Office files to avoid Apple’s sandbox problems
  • Create an alias (shortcut) to this folder on the Desktop
  • Create the folders to store your AppleScriptTask files(.scpt) in
  • Create a new folder on your Desktop with shortcuts to a few important folders

Shortcut or Alias to :
  • Office root folder
  • Mac Office files (use for your own files)
  • My Startup files
  • My Templates files
  • My Chart Templates files
  • My Add-Ins files
  • My plist files (register files like RegEdit in Windows)
  • AppleScriptTask Excel files
  • AppleScriptTask Word files
  • AppleScriptTask PowerPoint files

Download Script file

You run this script only one time and after that it is very easy to open the folder locations without looking for them in different locations because now they are all in one folder on your Desktop. You are free to add more folders if you want to the script. I not create the shortcuts to the application specific folders to the script but if you want that look for folder8 in the script for and example for the Excel folder.

Download Script file (13-July-2020)

When you double click on the MacOfficeSetup.scpt file it open the file in the Script Editor. You can use CMD + R or press the Run button on the menu of the Script Editor to Run the script.

It will show you a msgbox with some information and it open the new folder in Finder with all the shortcuts in it, there is also a separate shortcut on the Desktop to the folder where you can keep you Office files to avoid problems with Apple’s sandbox. You can close the script file now and you not need it anymore in the future so if you want you can delete it from your Mac.
23/03/2024
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