MathType and Microsoft Office 2008 for Macintosh

Future MathType 6.0 needed for compatibility

In mid-January 2008, Microsoft released a new version of Office for Macintosh, Office 2008. This is the first version of Office that runs natively on Intel-based Macs. Unfortunately, they've changed a number of things in this release that make the existing versions of MathType incompatible with it. We are working on a new version, MathType 6.0, to address this. We expect to release this in July 2008. If you would like to be notified when MathType 6.0 is available or be considered as a beta tester, please let us know by emailing to sales@dessci.com.

Microsoft omits VBA from Mac Office 2008, creating problems for MathType and many other users

Microsoft has omitted VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) support from Office 2008, claiming that it would cost too much to port this to the Intel Mac platform. Lack of VBA support is going to cause problems for many users, especially those that use Excel macros, MathType, and many other products that contain features implemented as VBA macros. MathType's toolbar and menu inside Word are no longer possible. Features such as equation numbering, formatting, etc. will not be available.

Microsoft decides to restore VBA to Mac Office, but probably not until 2010 at the earliest

On May 13th, 2008, Microsoft announced that they will be adding VBA back to the next major version of Mac Office. However, they do not give a date for that release. Since the current version was released in 2008, our best guess is that the version with VBA support will be released in 2010 at the earliest. Many of our customers were among those that complained to Microsoft about VBA being left out of Office 2008. We like to think that Microsoft's change of heart was at least partially due to their efforts. Thanks for making it happen.

What to do in the meantime

We are sorry about this situation and hope that you realize that it is out of our control. Our recommendation is to:

• Delay upgrading to Office 2008. If you have already purchased it, put it on the shelf until MathType 6.0 is released.
• Consider sticking with Office 2004 until Microsoft restores VBA support in the next major version, 2010 at the earliest.