MS Word plugin – will it work with the new 2016 release?

[Cassady]

Hello all,

Took the plunge through the Education Store, and am in the process of downloading the new Office(365) 2016 Mac versions.
I was very tempted to first delete/uninstall any semblance of my previous 2011 Office for Mac version, prior to installing the new version – don't want any unnecessary conflicts.

Then I had a thought, which I'd appreciate confirmed:

Will the BE plugin work in the newest Word (Mac) version?
To be honest, I cannot even remember how I installed it in the initial version – will no doubt find it again – but before removing Word 2011, has everything been checked? I know it was only released a few hours back – but was it working in the Preview versions?

Anyone tried it yet on the final version?

Many thanks!

[Jon]

It won't work. MS seems to have sealed off Word from third party apps, for now at least. You can save as RTF and scan that. We'll se how things develop as they move toward releasing a standalone version of Office 2016.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Jon]

Addendum: I think the scripts that work with Word 2011 will still work with Word 2016. To get to these scripts, use Bookends Help -> Show Bookends Folder in Finder. There will be a folder there called

Word 2008/2011 Scripts

Open the Word document you want to scan and Bookends, and then double click

Scan Document.scpt

This should launch the Script Editor and open the script, which you can run by clicking the forward arrow.

If this solution works, I can make the scripts self-contained (i.e. run without going through the Script Editor). I can also make them launchable via a system Scripts menu. And of course we can wait and see what MS does.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Simon]

I can confirm the scripts work, Jon. Or at least, mostly: on my (ageing and overworked) machine, the final paste needed to be done manually, for both the scanning and the unscanning scripts.

[Jon]

Please see if this FAQ helps

http://www.sonnysoftware.com/faq/faq.ht ... rting_a_ci

I'm reading that Word 2016 is sandboxed (don't know if that's true or not), which may affect interapplication communication.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Simon]

Ah, yes, that seems to be why; you can tell I haven't used Word in years

[Jon]

I've just made a silent update that should fix the problem with automatic paste of a scanned document into Word 2016. Don't download this unless you're using Word 2016, it contains no other changes. And of course it will be built into the next announced update.

Jon
Sonny Software

[thecritic]

But where do the scanning scripts go now?

[Jon]

Anywhere you want (e.g. on the Desktop is fine). MS has removed the ability to directly access them from Word, at least for now. Hopefully this will be restored before the final standalone Office is released in September.

Another option is to put them in the Finder Scripts menu. Here are instructions:

"The MS Word 2016 scripts can be accessed via the Scripts menu on the right side of the menu bar (it's an icon, not a word). If you don't see the Scripts menu, you can enable it by running Script Editor and checking "Show Script menu in menu bar" in its preferences (General tab). The scripts belong in

~/Library/Scripts/

You can find that folder (which is normally hidden by the Finder) by using the Scripts menu option Open Scripts Folder -> Open User Scripts Folder

Jon
Sonny Software

[thecritic]

So you can't update the scripts automatically when a user installs a new version of Bookends, right?

[Jon]

I don't understand the question. The same scripts that worked before still work, just not from within Word. Are you asking if Bookends can put them in the system Scripts folder, a one time event, for you automatically?

Jon
Sonny Software

[thecritic]

Yes. Until now, Bookends has been automatically updating its scripts with every update, hasn't it? So now that Word 2016 won't have its own scripts folder, will you place and automatically update the scripts in ~/Library/Scripts/Word ?

By the way, instead of using the Apple-supplied Scripts menu, people should consider the vastly-superior Fast Scripts app:

https://red-sweater.com/fastscripts/

[Jon]

The Bookends scripts for Word haven't changed for years. so there really hasn't been any updating (installing, yes).

As I've said, I have no idea where MS is going with this. If they don't add a scripts menu back, then yes, I'd have Bookends install the scripts (as ".apps" that don't require Script Editor to run) in the system Scripts folder. It's also possible that MS will allow third party macros (they used to), which might to the trick, too. I find it hard to believe that MS will strip Word (all the Office apps, actually) of all interapplication communication. This is an evolving situation, and once it's clear I'll update Bookends accordingly.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Simon]

I've just made a silent update that should fix the problem with automatic paste of a scanned document into Word 2016.

Thanks Jon, it works great.

I simply copied the scripts from the Bookends folder to a new folder under the scripts menu as so, using Terminal:

Code: Select all

$ mkdir ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Microsoft\ Word/
$ cp ~/Library/Application\ Support/Bookends/Scripts\ for\ MS\ Word/Word\ 2008:2011\ Scripts/* ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Microsoft\ Word/

With the menu item for Apple Scripts, all works as you'd expect...

[thecritic]

Try Fast Scripts. It allows you to assign command-key equivalents to scripts, among other features.

So does Word 2016 now work with Bookends as before, except that one has to execute scripts from outside the program? No other problems?