Have been using office 2007 for years. I would like to upgrade to a new version of office. I understand that office 365 is cloud based. Do the individual apps like word and excel reside on the cloud. If so how would you run the apps if you were at a location with out web access?
The applications are loaded onto your machine so you can work offline.
Our family has been using Office 365 for two years and am generally quite pleased. We have it loaded on 3 PC's and 1 Mac. Could also load it on our tablets but have no need to.
For us, the best part is 1 TB of cloud storage for all 4 family members.
Thanks . I was worried that I had to be on the Internet to use the apps. A lot of the time I am at a location that does not have Internet. If web access were required it would render the product useless for about half of the things I have to do. I plan on updating product on my desk top pc and my lap top . I have used open office and have never been comfortable with it. I much prefer MS office. I was worried that if web access was a requirement I would be stuck with office 2007 or open office.
If you're a single user using a computer (or two) without need for cloud, I would just update/get MSOffice every few years. It's a lot less money than paying out $100/year or whatever...
I went from Office 95 to Office 2004 to Office 2011 (Mac - Windows versions may have different years) My wife is a teacher, so we've always had pretty good discounts, not sure if that's still the case.
If you're a single user then you would buy the $70 a year personal edition, not the $100 a year version which is for up to 5 users. MS Office for 1 user is about $250 so you would have to use it for 4+ years to start making it make any economic sense (and remember with 365 you're getting the new edition if it comes out at no extra charge)
In addition, if you have a laptop and you are often out of home then the 1 TB of Cloud Storage alone could be very well worth $70 or $100 a year. Most online storage options are between $5 and $10 a month for considerably less storage. A Dropbox Pro sub with 1TB of storage is $109 CDN a year so Office 365 with 1 TB of storage is cheaper than Dropbox!
If you have more than one computer, then its a no brainer.
MS Office 2010 Home and Student was for three computers and once the 2013 came out there was a free upgrade for one computer. You could have got it for less than $100. Now stand alone MS Office Home and Student is only for one computer and costs $139. If you want it for more than one computer or you need MS Outlook, Access, or Publisher you have no choice but to get MS Office 365 1 year subscription at $69 for 1 PC and 1 tablet or at $99 for up to 5 PCs and 5 tablets.
If you are a student Microsoft has a sweet deal MS Office 365 University for 2 PCs, 4 years subscription for $79.
I paid $200 for two-computer versions the last couple of times. Since I use it for 5-10 years, that works out to $20-$40/yr. The OP said two computers, so that's $100/yr for 365. Again, you need to evaluate your personal needs and I was just presenting an option that has worked well for me.
I also don't put anything personal (or business) on the cloud - it's a trust thing.
I really wish OneDrive would let me add any folder on my machine. I currently use an online backup/sync program for my machines for about $100 per year. For that same $100, i could get 5 copies of office and my online backups !
Playing around with it now, it may still do what i need, however I will have to move My Documents, My Pictures, into the OneDrive folder. So far seems like it works as I need (backup really, don't care about online access, sync, etc).
I have used Office 365 for other people who have bought it, setup and install is VERY fast, easy to add/remove machines as well from the 5 user license. I think if you are using 3+ machines and with the benefit of online storage, hard to beat $100 per year.
Yep, that is what I have done. The current product I use I could add any folder on the machine to the "sync", will miss that.
Can anyone using Office 365/one drive confirm - that with multiple licenses /users - the one drive is also separate? ie. separate storage for my wife and I ?
Can anyone using Office 365/one drive confirm - that with multiple licenses /users - the one drive is also separate? ie. separate storage for my wife and I ?
My wife and I have Office365 installed on 3 machines, and yes, OneDrive storage is separate for each licensed owner.
I also use LibreOffice on my laptop. My wife has some PowerPoint files that do not display properly with Impress and she finds that Word formats many of her Word documents better than LO. I have a large document that I prefer to edit with LO. Mail-merge with Word has some limitations but it far exceeds LO. In summary, having the two is the best of both worlds.
I have been mulling over this.. and likely will be moving ahead shortly with going with it.
I look at it this way. 5 users (for ALL MS office pro even) for $100 / year.
Our household only using 2-3 instances of it.. that leaves 2 more. If I can get 1-2 relatives to chip in (they get the last two).. bring it down to $60.
(really is only about $20 a person / year if you break it down)
New office comes out aprox every.. 3 years?
So do a breakdown of cost. (comparing PRO, as that is really what you get with the 365)
Office pro = $500+ (one device)
Office 365, even at paying full price $100x3 = $300 (for 5 devices)
So your still cheaper by almost $200.
As well, by the end of year 3... oh new version comes out. You want it?
365 you get it automatically... regular purchase? Nope.. got to pay to upgrade.
Why not use LibreOffice or OpenOffice? For most people they offer all you need and are free downloads. There is no need to subscribe to or buy MS Office. Both are available for Linux, Mac and Windows. Also, if you want cloud support, there's always Google Docs, which supports both MS and ODF formats.
No Outlook with open office (yes, some hate - others love). I install OpenOffice for many people I know - as they only use the most basic features. As well the spreadsheet application does have some differences for those that use macros, etc.
Once nice bonus with Office 365 for my wife will be office on android tablet for occasional use.
Biggest thing for me about NOT using free options..
Formatting.
It all depends on who/what else will be viewing the files.
I have used a number of them, and while they open them fine.. there is always minute things which DOESNT carry over properly sometimes. Even some BIG things on HEAVILY programmed spreadsheets.
I tried using open office for about a year. It did not do mail merge . At least I could not figure it out. And I also like using macros in excel. I found a lot of what I needed was just not there in open office. I don't mind paying for software that does what I need.
When I asked my question about office 365, I was under the false impression that stand alone, none web based , versions were no longer available. Now that I am aware of my misconception , I have a new dilemma . Should I get web based or stand alone? Does each license get it's own cloud storage? Or is the cloud storage space shared?
Although, even it was shared, it would still be a deal. FWIW, our family doesn't even use the 1TB combined, primarily because it takes FOREVER to upload a few hundred GB's of data.
Another thing to look into is if you are eligible for a cheap home version due to a corporate license where you work. I am able to get an Office license for $30 due to our corporate subscription - I think that allows me to run Office on two PCs at home.
Office 365 has 3 major versions for individuals: Personal, University, and Home.
Personal is a single-user license for 1 PC or Mac, 1 tablet, and 1 phone, and includes 1 TB of storage for $69.00/year.
University is a single-user license for 2 PCs, Macs, or tablets, and 2 phones and includes 1 TB of storage for $79.00 for 4 years (about $19.75/yr)
Home is a 5-user license for 5 PCs or Macs, 5 tablets, and 5 phones, and provides 1 TB of storage per user. Each user must have their own Microsoft account, which they use to access their online storage.
A further update, still happy with my decision, still a few missing features with OneDrive.
- on windows 8.1, have to use microsoft account as login to use OneDrive, can't use local account
- shared folders in OneDrive are not synced together
- can't add any folder to sync - so I moved documents, pictures , etc - under the OneDrive Folder. The ability to add an folder on the machine to the sync is really needed.
- speeds are quite good for me, on Shaw BB50, upload speed for initial bkup is approx 1 GB per hour.
Along with moving to 365/onedrive - I also forwarded all my shaw email to outlook.com via alias and added shaw as a "send only". This gives me full sync with Outlook 2013, phones, etc and more space (15 gb vs 1 gb with shaw) and everything still sends out via shaw servers. Excellent for me to deal with Shaw's lack of upgrades. Only negative is group contacts don't sync properly.
I've finally moved onto W10 with a new laptop, having been using W7 and Office 2007, so I've been looking at this issue.
I have gmail but I'm not keen and I'm not overly impressed with Outlook.com either.
Basically I really like (original) Outlook, Word and Excel. I'd be happy to have no more than that.
I used to run excel for rental income/expenses but I no longer have a need for that. I use it for banking but I daresay there's some alternative for that (starting the month with a balance, showing 'reserved' money for regular bills, you know the sort of thing)...any recommendations?
I need to write the odd letter. I imagine there are a lot like me who don't want the bells and whistles.
I think the subscription deal is quite good for a family if parents bothe use Office things and the 'kids' too. But in our house it's really just me wanting a few things and not the others. The $70 single use isn't really a good deal unless one makes use of skype and cloud and I don't. Not interested.
So, for the moment I am using Kingsoft for word and excel replacement. Excel seems fine but as I say, just for banking an alternative may be better. I've not used Writer(Word) yet. The ads are a little annoying but wait a couple of seconds and it's gone.
To replace (original) Outlook I am using Thunderbird which looks quite similar.
I imagine I'll get used to it but if could get just those three as part of an MS offering for $100, I'd probably go for it.
I see that 'life' currently seems to be 10 years for each version, so 2010 would last another 3; 2013 another 6. Well worth it compared to 3x£70 or 6X$70.
I've seen Amazon (well, sellers) selling the activation/product keys for about $80 but I'm unconvinced they are genuine. Everything on the MS site seems to default to the 365 version, unless one already has 2010 and you want to re-install it.
So, for the moment I am using Kingsoft for word and excel replacement. Excel seems fine but as I say, just for banking an alternative may be better. I've not used Writer(Word) yet. The ads are a little annoying but wait a couple of seconds and it's gone.
You can use Microsoft Office online for free - just sign in with your Microsoft account and all your files are stored on OneDrive. No ads in Word and Excel - just the online Outlook interface.
- Thunderbird is a good alternative to Outlook if you typically need to keep your old emails. An alternative is Microsoft Mail (free with W10) and all your emails can be store in the account on the cloud.
- A free alternative for Word and Excel is LibreOffice (Writes and Calc). It is about 98% compatible and more than adequate if you are not dependent on exchanging files for business. Excel macros will not work with Calc (it has its own macro facility). Easy to create a spreadsheet for your banking needs but there may be software app alternatives.
Office 365 user here. Both at home with a personal Sub.. as well as through work.
The online Word/Excel are decent. Especially when free for basic usage.
Only downside is.. i find the formatting sometime is sometimes lacking. Doesnt carry over formatting quite right from all docs created elsewhere.
As well, I have found the PRINTING, from what you see on screen, doesnt always 1:1.
The outlook web interface is HORRIBLE though, compared to full outlook.
I dont know why they changed it so much.. OWA they used to be able to make it almost identical to the full client, just web based.
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