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Microsoft 365 subscription...

Blue Quark

Blue Quark

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 25, 2020
196
147
Probabilistic
Last year I bought a new desktop computer, and eventually replaced the M.2 drive with a 1TB unit and dual-booted with Linux Mint, splitting the drive in half. 500GB each for Windows 10 and Linux Mint is honestly more than enough room. At the time, I thought it might be nice to have the M$ 365 subscription so I could play around with Office on the theory that if I am going to re-enter the tech industry, such familiarity would be useful.

I just let it lapse today. The truth is I basically never used it. Word and Excel in Windows sucks, basically. I mean, I guess they're ok, but using them is really lame feeling. I've played with Office 365 for macOS and even it seems snappier and nice than in Windows 10. However, it has never really worked as solidly as LibreOffice. Plus, with a number of the files I use, it always makes a mess of them.

It comes with an Outlook account, but I've never used it, either. I have Gmail and other accounts already, so it was pretty much superfluous. And with the company I work for, I get to see and use Outlook for corporate email. And again, I suppose it's ok, too, but it sure seems like incredible overkill for most things. The people above me do sometimes make use of other features, but I've never really been all that wowed by it.

I think I have access to Apple's email service, but does anyone else here use it?
 
I used Word and Excel at work and always found them horrendously complicated. I learned how to use Pages and Numbers and find them much easier to use. And they both import and export to M$ formats.
 
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Personally speaking I love Excel. Not a fan of Word, but it does what it should do. Planner however has been a life changer for me.
 
My requirements were pretty basic so all the extra features just got in the way. I never did figure out how to do sorting in Excel. I had Office on my system at work and it must have been an old version because the spreadsheets my boss sent me wouldn't open. So I pushed them over to my iPad and they opened right up. ;)
 
I've heard that Word and Excel are great for professionals with large projects.

I've always found it difficult to learn and use and use other tools instead.

I use LaTeX, Pages, Numbers, Notes, emacs, and LibreOffice depending on the task at hand.
 
Where I work we have both the Office 365 cloud (Chrome, Mac & PC) and app installed products for up to 5 devices.

It's a waste for what we paid because we only use Excel (CSV) for data.

But everything else we all use Google's Sheet, Docs, etc....
 
Never been a fan of the Office Suite, but over the years I've found it to be better (to me) than the competition, free or otherwise.

I got started with word processing on a Commodore 64 during the late 80s. Using it for term papers at school. Later I moved on the Microsoft Works because that's what came with the PC I had bought.

So when I started using Word it was light years better. I've just stuck with it. I'm used to it and I haven't found anything better (for me).
 
yaxomoxay said:
Personally speaking I love Excel.
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👍👍👍 Excel is the only must have program for me. I've tried all the free office suites, but they can't hold a candle to Excel. VBA and pivot tables are the killer features I can't live without.
yaxomoxay said:
Not a fan of Word, but it does what it should do.
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Words tries to do more than it should. It should be a word processor, but it tries to be a desktop publishing, website design program. That adds a awful lot of bloat. I use MS' free WordPad that comes with Windows as my main word processor. It's quick and can handle 95% of my word processing needs. I only use Words when WordPad is lacking.
 
Excel is amazing. Maybe overkill for personal use but I like it enough to subscribe to O365. Word and other programs are a definite bonus. Plus the 1TB of storage basically pays for itself.
 
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Excel is where I spend about half my day. Lots of really useful features for what I do.

I use word. But lets be honest its not been the same since we lost this guy...
 
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I use Excel all the time, great program. I can't believe the same company that makes Excel makes Word. Publisher was good, just hate Word. When I was writing specs for communications projects for military hospitals, we used WordPerfect. That was a great program, easy to use and the reveal codes let me make changes easily. The then Health Facility Planning Agency required us to switch to Word. I would send my boss the files in WordPerfect, he would make his corrections then convert them to Word for submitttals.
 
Allyance said:
I use Excel all the time, great program. I can't believe the same company that makes Excel makes Word. Publisher was good, just hate Word. When I was writing specs for communications projects for military hospitals, we used WordPerfect. That was a great program, easy to use and the reveal codes let me make changes easily. The then Health Facility Planning Agency required us to switch to Word. I would send my boss the files in WordPerfect, he would make his corrections then convert them to Word for submitttals.
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I had a typical Office setup at work and I always found Excel too complicated for simple tasks. My boss would send me sheets and I was never able to do a basic sort. It would complain about the columns not being the same. So I started dropping them into my iPad and sort them with Numbers with no issues. The Office apps are great for complicated tasks but not so easy for simple ones.
 
Crowbot said:
I always found Excel too complicated for simple tasks
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Excel is definitely the star of the suite for me, and its offers so much flexibility, and ability. I actually write an accounting application in VBA/Excel. It was a complete system, with posting from a journal, to a ledger, creating reports such as the balance sheet and P&L. I was pretty happy with it, at the time.
 
maflynn said:
Excel is definitely the star of the suite for me, and its offers so much flexibility, and ability. I actually write an accounting application in VBA/Excel. It was a complete system, with posting from a journal, to a ledger, creating reports such as the balance sheet and P&L. I was pretty happy with it, at the time.
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Right. For you, Excel is a must. But it would be nice to have a way to scale it back to a simpler interface for people like me who don't need all the bells and whistles. It's the difference between flying a 747 and a Piper Cub. My personal budget is about the most complex thing I work on.
 
Crowbot said:
Right. For you, Excel is a must. But it would be nice to have a way to scale it back to a simpler interface for people like me who don't need all the bells and whistles. It's the difference between flying a 747 and a Piper Cub. My personal budget is about the most complex thing I work on.
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Numbers? But I like all the bells and whistles in excel.
 
Apple fanboy said:
Numbers?
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Coming from someone who's used Excel extensively, I can easily say how I hate Numbers. Perhaps things have changed since my last interaction with Numbers but I found entering in lots of data is a hassle, as with dealing with formulas. Its not really a robust or strong spreadsheet app.
 
maflynn said:
Coming from someone who's used Excel extensively, I can easily say how I hate Numbers. Perhaps things have changed since my last interaction with Numbers but I found entering in lots of data is a hassle, as with dealing with formulas. Its not really a robust or strong spreadsheet app.
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I find Numbers fine for Quick and Dirty but go to LibreOffice if I need to do more. I am not a big Excel user but understand that it's the Gold Standard from what I've heard from finance people.
 
maflynn said:
Coming from someone who's used Excel extensively, I can easily say how I hate Numbers. Perhaps things have changed since my last interaction with Numbers but I found entering in lots of data is a hassle, as with dealing with formulas. Its not really a robust or strong spreadsheet app.
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It’s not for me either. But for the casual user maybe.
 
Crowbot said:
I had a typical Office setup at work and I always found Excel too complicated for simple tasks. My boss would send me sheets and I was never able to do a basic sort. It would complain about the columns not being the same. So I started dropping them into my iPad and sort them with Numbers with no issues. The Office apps are great for complicated tasks but not so easy for simple ones.
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Excel is the standard in most offices, I tried Numbers before I got Excel for the Mac, there is no comparison. Like I said Excel was written by a completely different group than Word. No continuity in how the were set up.
 
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