Friday, February 27, 2015

Legally Installing Microsofts Fonts in OSX for Free

So you have Office 2011 for Mac and you're having trouble collaborating with your Windows-loving friends because you don't have Calibri or some other MS font, what should you do?

I Googled for an answer and got one (this discussion from 2012), but it was old and the link to MS's app didn't work.  So here's an updated procedure (this worked in Mavericks, and should work for older versions, also).


  1. Visit http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=21007 and download the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.1.8 - it will arrive as a DMG.
  2. When the DMG opens you may install the software as a whole, but if you already have the latest version of Office you're just adding stuff you don't need and potentially introducing problems.  Instead right click Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.1.8.mpkg and select Show Package Contents.
  3. Navigate to the Contents folder then the Packages folder.
  4. Double-click OpenXML_all_fonts.pkg and execute the installer then complete the installation.
  5. Eject the disk image (duh).
  6. Open Office 2011 and be productive!