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Microsoft office for Mac - stability - 2016 VS 2019 VS 2021

C

canadian lamp

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 23, 2021
19
5
Hello,
I have a question regarding an upgrade of Microsoft office on an Intel Mac. I was trying to decide between 2016(which is no longer supported), 2019 or the new 2021 for Mac.

I’m not interested in paying every year for a Office 365 Subscription Service

I am most concerned about the stability of the program. I do not need any updates for this specific program. , security is nice but not absolutely critical for what I do. I was using the 2011 version for 10 years and was happy with it as it is stable but it is no longer an option. I am mainly concerned with word, Excel and seldom PowerPoint

I know that some Microsoft products (in the far past) have had questionable stability, but I know nothing of the newer office versions.

The question is what have you experienced this in with stability in your (non-365) experiencey with the Microsoft office products in which one would you recommend based on stability

Microsoft office for Mac - stability - 2016 VS 2019 VS 2021 - your experience?
-CL
 
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I never really noticed a difference. I'd get 2019 or 2021 because at any time an OS update or upgrade could kill 2016 and it'll never get fixed. Probably 2021 for the longest support life.

Do you really need MS Office. Libreoffice is free and will do most anything MS Office can do. You just need to change the default save as settings if you'll be sharing documents with MS Office users. So, the files are made in an MS Office friendly format.

The interface looks like Office 2003. You can change it to something which resembles the Ribbon.

Edit: I use 365. It's cheaper when you have multiple computers, users and need to share between them, iPads, iPhones and Android. Plus need cloud storage. At any rate. Because I use 365. I've used each version as they come out. I've not noticed any stability issues in Windows or macOS.
 
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I always when as new upgrade when a new suite is announced. MS issues incremental upgrades every month (sometimes sooner) and I download and upgrade when that happens. Right now MSO 2019 and 2021 are the same as far as features and upgrades are concerned. The latest release is V16.57. I also do not espouse the rental strategy and do not own MSO 365.

I have had no stability problems.

Lou
 
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I've never had a stability issue with any version of Office, though older versions were painfully slow. The latest version looks much cleaner, and runs fast (though that may be because Macs have gotten much faster).

I know you said you don't want a subscription, but IMHO Office 365 for personal use is a great value. But if not that, then 2021.
 
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TallGuyGT said:
I've never had a stability issue with any version of Office, though older versions were painfully slow. The latest version looks much cleaner, and runs fast (though that may be because Macs have gotten much faster).

I know you said you don't want a subscription, but IMHO Office 365 for personal use is a great value. But if not that, then 2021.
Click to expand...
Speed improvements would be much appreciated. I do remember trying to use Excel with many formulas and forced to use a PC version to get my work done.


I get the convenience of 365. There’s a part of me that wants to, but it is not a piece of software that I personally need updated frequently. It depends on the use case

Quote
It’s good to see you don’t have those issues

Quote

I’ve tried libre office recently. I was getting pinwheels of death right after the installation. I do need good excel formula compatibility and plan on working with non-Mac users. I’m a bit Sceptical
 
No stability issues here, although I am running Office 365. However, considering that both Office 2019 and Office 2021 are nothing more than simple snapshots of Office 365 at a specific stage of development frozen in time for good you should be fine with Office 2021 for years to come.
 
No, you don't upgrade Office every month. You update office every month. That is a big difference.
Office 365 = constant improvements and new features (aka upgrades) as well as monthly security updates.
Office 2021 = feature set frozen in time with new features (aka upgrades) added occasionally plus monthly security updates.

That's really the only difference between the two. With Office 365 you get new features and improvements all the time. With Office 2019/2021, the feature set gets frozen at a specific point in time and you only get security updates. I should note that there are some minor differences in their respective feature set. For example, Office 365 is required to schedule a Microsoft Teams conference. There are a few other differences but those are minor by and large.
 
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I have Office 365 and really like it. It’s reasonably fast even on an old rMB 12”. The automatic updates are unobtrusive and nice.
 
Office 365 is obviously a different beast, being updated with a few more featuers. These products are different maybe not on the front end but definitely on the backend. It’s nice to hear that people are having goodexperiences with that.

This is a question of stability for the standalone products 2019 and 2021, not the feature set being updated.

Stability is the best feature for me for any piece of software or OS. Downtime or slow time can ruin a good experience
 
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Again, Office 2019 and 2021 are not any different from Office 365 in that they are simply a snapshot of Office 365 at that specific moment frozen in time in regards to features and capabilities. They are just as stable and robust.
 
All this is simply NOT TRUE!!!!! I've scheduled conferences with TEAMS! The monthly updates keep the feature set current with Office 365 until the next major release.

See this from the MS site:

TinyGrab Screen Shot 2-11-22, 11.17.59 AM.jpg

Lou
 
First of all calm down.

Second of all: it doesn't matter how often you keep repeating that statement it will remain incorrect. If you would've scrolled down just a little bit further on that page where you found that quote you would have also found the following table:

Screen Shot 2022-02-11 at 1.07.00 PM.png


Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ice-2021-ed447ebf-6060-46f9-9e90-a239bd27eb96

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: Feature updates (aka upgrades) are not included with one-time purchase versions of office such as Office 2016, 2019, or 2021! The feature set is frozen in time when that specific version is forked from the main Office source and it is most certainly not kept current with Office 365. That is simply not true, and it is after all the one major differentiator between the two.

And yes, it is absolutely possible that with Office 2021 you can now schedule a Teams meeting directly from within Outlook without an Office 365 subscription. When I last checked around 2 years ago a full integration of Teams within Office required a subscription while the standalone version of Office, Office 2019 back then, had no such integration whatsoever. I was still able to schedule a Teams meeting but I had to use Teams, and the calendars were not shared between the two (aka: Teams meetings only showed up in my Teams calender whereas with full integration they also appear in my Outlook calendar). It's very possible that they changed it with Office 2021.
 
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canadian lamp said:
Stability is the best feature for me for any piece of software or OS. Downtime or slow time can ruin a good experience
Click to expand...
Give a try to the stable version of LibreOffice (7.2.5 now https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/) :)

There is always Office Insider for those willing to test new features of Microsoft’s Office https://insider.office.com/en-us/
FEB 2, 2022 Better insights from Analyze Data feature in Excel https://insider.office.com/ro-ro/blog/better-insights-from-analyze-data-feature-in-excel
“Availability
We are rolling out this feature to Excel for the web users and to Office Insiders running:
Windows Version 1904 (Build 12730.20006) or later
Mac Version 16.36 (Build 20040502) or later”
 
canadian lamp said:
Hello,
I have a question regarding an upgrade of Microsoft office on an Intel Mac. I was trying to decide between 2016(which is no longer supported), 2019 or the new 2021 for Mac.

I’m not interested in paying every year for a Office 365 Subscription Service

I am most concerned about the stability of the program. I do not need any updates for this specific program. , security is nice but not absolutely critical for what I do. I was using the 2011 version for 10 years and was happy with it as it is stable but it is no longer an option. I am mainly concerned with word, Excel and seldom PowerPoint

I know that some Microsoft products (in the far past) have had questionable stability, but I know nothing of the newer office versions.

The question is what have you experienced this in with stability in your (non-365) experiencey with the Microsoft office products in which one would you recommend based on stability

Microsoft office for Mac - stability - 2016 VS 2019 VS 2021 - your experience?
-CL
Click to expand...
If you're that cheap why not Google Docs Editors?
 
Hexley said:
If you're that cheap why not Google Docs Editors?
Click to expand...
So to answer a few questions,

I’m not looking to go the “cheap” method. If I did, I will most likely go with a free option such is libre or google docs. I’m not looking to go the cheapest route, just because they don’t wanna pay for 365. Life does not have to be in extremes.

Frankly, most of my decision here it’s based on the the spreadsheet program. I personally feel that the Microsoft program is better than Google docs for my needs

Something akin to beta testing goes directly against the idea of need of stability for any software.

I found libre office to give beach balls for some reason immediately after installation on two different release versions. For some reason it doesn’t like my imac

For these reasons, I think the standalone is the best compromise for what I’m looking for, still.
 
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mj_ said:
First of all calm down.

Second of all: it doesn't matter how often you keep repeating that statement it will remain incorrect. If you would've scrolled down just a little bit further on that page where you found that quote you would have also found the following table:

View attachment 1957569

Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ice-2021-ed447ebf-6060-46f9-9e90-a239bd27eb96

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: Feature updates (aka upgrades) are not included with one-time purchase versions of office such as Office 2016, 2019, or 2021! The feature set is frozen in time when that specific version is forked from the main Office source and it is most certainly not kept current with Office 365. That is simply not true, and it is after all the one major differentiator between the two.

And yes, it is absolutely possible that with Office 2021 you can now schedule a Teams meeting directly from within Outlook without an Office 365 subscription. When I last checked around 2 years ago a full integration of Teams within Office required a subscription while the standalone version of Office, Office 2019 back then, had no such integration whatsoever. I was still able to schedule a Teams meeting but I had to use Teams, and the calendars were not shared between the two (aka: Teams meetings only showed up in my Teams calender whereas with full integration they also appear in my Outlook calendar). It's very possible that they changed it with Office 2021.
Click to expand...
You live in your fakata world and i'll live in mine1387914497.gif

Lou
 
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canadian lamp said:
So to answer a few questions,

I’m not looking to go the “cheap” method. If I did, I will most likely go with a free option such is libre or google docs. I’m not looking to go the cheapest route, just because they don’t wanna pay for 365. Life does not have to be in extremes.

Frankly, most of my decision here it’s based on the the spreadsheet program. I personally feel that the Microsoft program is better than Google docs for my needs

Something akin to beta testing goes directly against the idea of need of stability for any software.

I found libre office to give beach balls for some reason immediately after installation on two different release versions. For some reason it doesn’t like my imac

For these reasons, I think the standalone is the best compromise for what I’m looking for, still.
Click to expand...
Something tells me your time is less valuable than money. No shame in that.

If you have access to the installers and if your Mac can use it then give it a test
 
canadian lamp said:
I found libre office to give beach balls for some reason immediately after installation on two different release versions. For some reason it doesn’t like my imac
Click to expand...
Have you tried without OpenCL?
OpenCL.jpg
If you have Java installed, without Java
java_in_LibreOffice.jpg
 
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mj_ said:
View attachment 1957569

Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ice-2021-ed447ebf-6060-46f9-9e90-a239bd27eb96

Feature updates (aka upgrades) are not included with one-time purchase versions of office such as Office 2016, 2019, or 2021! The feature set is frozen in time when that specific version is forked from the main Office source and it is most certainly not kept current with Office 365.
Click to expand...

According to what Microsoft support just told me, bug fixes are available for one-time purchase versions of Microsoft Office 2021, which may be nuance that is quite important to know. I'm not sure why MS aren't more explicit on this in that link, but I suppose sometimes a bug fix and a new feature overlaps somewhat, so better not promise too much.

My takeaway is that if one is content with the feature set of Office 2021, then one can expect security updates and bug fixes until October 2026 with the one-time purchase versions, just not "new features". What that might mean is up to Microsoft.
 
bogdanw said:
Give a try to the stable version of LibreOffice (7.2.5 now https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/) :)

There is always Office Insider for those willing to test new features of Microsoft’s Office https://insider.office.com/en-us/
FEB 2, 2022 Better insights from Analyze Data feature in Excel https://insider.office.com/ro-ro/blog/better-insights-from-analyze-data-feature-in-excel
“Availability
We are rolling out this feature to Excel for the web users and to Office Insiders running:
Windows Version 1904 (Build 12730.20006) or later
Mac Version 16.36 (Build 20040502) or later”
Click to expand...
It would seem Insider is only available to Office365 subscribers, at least on Mac.
 
I've seen some "weirdness" with both Word and Excel on occasion - nothing earth-shaking, more like "glitches" ... but lately have been using Pages/Numbers and actually starting to like them quite a bit... and the cost/savings is great... but I am also retired, and no longer have the need to share documents with IT professionals who use the MS suite...

Someone once said "nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft products"... there has to be a reason, right?
 
There has been a lot of question going around as what is the difference between MS office 2019 and Office 365? Well, the basic difference between Office 2019 and Office 365 is that MS office 2019 is software that is needed to be purchased and installed on your PC and you also need to buy an MS Office key to activate it. Moreover, if you need any updates you have to buy a new version of it. On the other hand, Office 365 is an online-based subscription service and it gets updated automatically.
 
^^^^^Again that's simply not true. MS updates Office monthly and the updates are easily available to registered users, until MS stops supporting that version. Then you buy the next version.

Lou
 
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