Which Office to buy...

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Rhezuss

Rhezuss

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2006
4,118
34
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In the process of upgrading my OS to Windows 8.1 and looking at following with Office. I see that Office 365 now cost an annual fee to use, and 365 Personal is 69.99 (not bad).

Is this the "new" way to go or can I still buy a one-shot Office Suite that I don't need to subscribe?
 
Ketchup

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,559
248
106
2010 is still my favorite. Subscriptions do have the advantages though.
 
Berryracer

Berryracer

Platinum Member
Oct 4, 2006
2,779
1
81
I had a MS Office 2013 Home & Business Edition license which is a one time fee not a subscription based license but when I needed a few more licenses for my other family members, I decided to opt for the annual fee for 365 Office 2013 which is a great deal IMO as it not only allows you to install Office on 5 computers, but also 5 mobile devices like iPads or iPhones PLUS it gives you 60 mins free international calling minutes every month to use in Skype + the best of all, it gives each of the 5 users that use it a 1 TB storage space in OneDrive so that's on less subscription (Cloud Storage that is if you use it)
 
bbhaag

bbhaag

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2011
7,380
3,012
146
Do you have a Live account? If you do you can go to office.com sign in and use Word, excel, powerpoint, onenote, and a few other things for free. They aren't as fully featured as the installer and there is a little latency because it's online but over all not bad. Especially for home use.

You can save documents locally as well so don't worry about the "only available in the cloud". I've actually gone this route at home because well.....I'm cheap haha and I don't use Office much beyond the basic tasks.
 
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mrjminer

Platinum Member
Dec 2, 2005
2,739
16
76
bbhaag said:
Do you have a Live account? If you do you can go to office.com sign in and use Word, excel, powerpoint, onenote, and a few other things for free. They aren't as fully featured as the installer and there is a little latency because it's online but over all not bad. Especially for home use.

You can save documents locally as well so don't worry about the "only available in the cloud". I've actually gone this route at home because well.....I'm cheap haha and I don't use Office much beyond the basic tasks.
Click to expand...

I tried it about 6 months ago and it was a pretty poor substitute. Extremely slow, and kept hitting a bunch of bugs and problems with formatting issues.

H&S will work for OP with only Word, PP, and Excel, or 365.
 
bbhaag

bbhaag

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2011
7,380
3,012
146
I already pointed out all those issues although I don't find it buggy. Anyway I was just throwing it out there for the OP to check out. Most people have a LIVE account or it takes less than 5 minutes to create one.
It's obviously not for everyone though.
 
M

mrjminer

Platinum Member
Dec 2, 2005
2,739
16
76
bbhaag said:
I already pointed out all those issues although I don't find it buggy. Anyway I was just throwing it out there for the OP to check out. Most people have a LIVE account or it takes less than 5 minutes to create one.
It's obviously not for everyone though.
Click to expand...

Yea, I don't know if it was the server at the time or something. I literally only used it that one time and it was extremely slow and I kept hitting errors. My incident is probably isolated, since it was completely unusable when I tried it out. If you were even able to save a single file or do any kind of formatting without getting errors, then my event was just a one-off problem.
 
JEDIYoda

JEDIYoda

Lifer
Jul 13, 2005
33,986
3,321
126
personally currently I am using Office 365. The monthly price is right. So no complaints...
 
G

gammaray

Senior member
Jul 30, 2006
859
17
81
why not use live office or open office? both are free and do everything M$ office does...
 
Rhezuss

Rhezuss

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2006
4,118
34
91
Good points about Open Office. I have a few friends that use it don't look back.
 
gmaster456

gmaster456

Golden Member
Sep 7, 2011
1,877
0
71
gammaray said:
why not use live office or open office? both are free and do everything M$ office does...
Click to expand...

No they don't, especially if you use Office in a professional setting. I would hate to be the guy that breaks a Macro or ruins the formatting because I was too cheap to buy office.


For a home setting however, Openoffice, Libre, Kingsoft etc. are all perfectly fine.
 
lxskllr

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
60,185
10,653
126
gmaster456 said:
No they don't, especially if you use Office in a professional setting. I would hate to be the guy that breaks a Macro or ruins the formatting because I was too cheap to buy office.


For a home setting however, Openoffice, Libre, Kingsoft etc. are all perfectly fine.
Click to expand...

I use LibreOffice in a professional setting, and it has nothing to do with cost. I use it because it's libre software. If my libre software breaks proprietary software, it isn't my problem. Clients get pdfs, and I don't care about anyone else.
 
H

holden j caufield

Diamond Member
Dec 30, 1999
6,324
10
81
berryracer said:
I had a MS Office 2013 Home & Business Edition license which is a one time fee not a subscription based license but when I needed a few more licenses for my other family members, I decided to opt for the annual fee for 365 Office 2013 which is a great deal IMO as it not only allows you to install Office on 5 computers, but also 5 mobile devices like iPads or iPhones PLUS it gives you 60 mins free international calling minutes every month to use in Skype + the best of all, it gives each of the 5 users that use it a 1 TB storage space in OneDrive so that's on less subscription (Cloud Storage that is if you use it)
Click to expand...

is this just 5 activations or if I uninstall it on a tablet, can I install it on a pc. Sometimes I just need it on my tablet once or twice a month.
 
Ketchup

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,559
248
106
holden j caufield said:
is this just 5 activations or if I uninstall it on a tablet, can I install it on a pc. Sometimes I just need it on my tablet once or twice a month.
Click to expand...

I can go online and remove activations as needed. I am not sure if there is a limit for how often I can move the activation around.
 
R

Remobz

Platinum Member
Jun 9, 2005
2,564
37
91
Which is better for home user or small business?

Libre Office or Open Office?
 
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