Microsoft on Mac question

[Avril2108]

Hi, MacRumors Users!

I have been using Microsoft 365 for the last two years, but having to pay for a yearly subscription is becoming really too expensive. Just received a reminder for next year's subscription.

I see there is an alternative, Microsoft Office Home, with lifetime validity, and am wondering if buying it would turn out to be less expensive in the end. The 365 is an annual subscription for MS, and it's extremely annoying to feel like a cash-cow being milked every 12 months by MS.

Has anyone in this forum bought/using the Microsoft Office Home version (for Mac) with lifetime validity and what has your experience been like? I am a translator (though I do not use the MS built-in translating feature which uses Google Translate, not very precise), and sometimes have to translate spreadsheets and text in Powerpoint. My translation work is not regular. Sometimes, none at all.

If anyone has had experience with the MOH, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Alameda]

Yes, I have used MS Office standalone for many year. I dislike the 365 versions.
They are usually good for five to seven years before there's a new version. I have the 2024 version now. They continually release maintenance updates for it.

 

[maflynn]

I've moved away from Office and started using OnlyOffice, there's also Libra Office, both open source.

 

[dmr727]

I like the standalone versions too - my employer gave me access to 2016 for something like $20, and I've been running that until late last year when I finally upgraded to 2024.

 

[Herbert123]

LibreOffice is a more than excellent alternative. Reads and writes MS Office documents without issues.

I've been using it for 2 decades now without problems. And given the choice, I prefer LibreOffice over MS Office.

Completely free and open source, developed and maintained by a community that cares.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a free office suite

www.libreoffice.org

 

[Avril2108]

Yes, I have used MS Office standalone for many year. I dislike the 365 versions.
They are usually good for five to seven years before there's a new version. I have the 2024 version now. They continually release maintenance updates for it.

Thank you for taking the time to reply! I think I will move to MS Office Home once my subscription for 365 expires.

 

[Avril2108]

I've moved away from Office and started using OnlyOffice, there's also Libra Office, both open source.

Thank you for taking the time to reply!
I would have liked to move to LibreOffice or OnlyOffice, but most of my clients send me documents in MS, so have to remain in the Microsoft sphere. Just a question: What happens when you receive MS documents? Are you able to open them using OnlyOffice and work on them (eventually saving them as MS documents for those who do not have OnlyOffice)? I am curious. Would appreciate knowing about your experience.

 

[Avril2108]

LibreOffice is a more than excellent alternative. Reads and writes MS Office documents without issues.

I've been using it for 2 decades now without problems. And given the choice, I prefer LibreOffice over MS Office.

Completely free and open source, developed and maintained by a community that cares.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a free office suite

www.libreoffice.org

Thank you for taking the time to reply!
A reply I sent to maflynn: I would have liked to move to LibreOffice or OnlyOffice, but most of my clients send me documents in MS, so have to remain in the Microsoft sphere. Just a question: What happens when you receive MS documents? Are you able to open them using OnlyOffice and work on them (eventually saving them as MS documents for those who do not have OnlyOffice)? I am curious. Would appreciate knowing about your experience.

 

[JSRinUK]

I’ll be dropping 365 this year, too. The price hike and push to the AI version was the last straw for me. I’m pulling everything out of OneDrive, and moving to alternatives for Office. I only went to Microsoft in the beginning because it was cheaper than the Dropbox I’d been paying for, and Office came bundled in. It was a no-brainer to switch back then. Now it feels like a no brainier to switch away.

My NAS has some form of Office bundled in, which I think is similar to OnlyOffice, but whatever it is that’ll probably do well enough for me.

 

[Parowdy]

I know there once were a couple reasons for me, but why do you not „just“ use iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)?
Just curious.

 

[Avril2108]

I’ll be dropping 365 this year, too. The price hike and push to the AI version was the last straw for me. I’m pulling everything out of OneDrive, and moving to alternatives for Office. I only went to Microsoft in the beginning because it was cheaper than the Dropbox I’d been paying for, and Office came bundled in. It was a no-brainer to switch back then. Now it feels like a no brainier to switch away.

My NAS has some form of Office bundled in, which I think is similar to OnlyOffice, but whatever it is that’ll probably do well enough for me.

I don't blame you! All most users need is a word processor, a spreadsheet and some sort of presentation (occasionally). MS has become increasingly complicated and Mac users cannot use many of the new AI additions. Waste of money.

 

[Avril2108]

I know there once were a couple reasons for me, but why do you not „just“ use iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)?
Just curious.

That would have been the perfect solution, but the majority of PC users (if not all) have MS loaded on their PCs as default and I don't think iWork documents convert easily to MS. It becomes difficult to work with PC Word users when exchanging documents. For example, I am a translator and almost all the documents I receive are in Word, Excel or Powerpoint (.pdf as well, but even those have to be converted to Word, etc.). Let's say, Microsoft is able to increase its prices regularly because it has the monopoly in the PC market. AI should have helped bring prices down, but it is the contrary. Sorry for venting!!

 

[Wando64]

One of my main reasons for continuing the 365 subscription is for the iPadOS version of the software.
If there were alternatives for that, I would probably switch as well.

 

[Wando64]

Microsoft is able to increase its prices regularly because it has the monopoly in the PC market.

I am sharing a family subscription with another 5 people and it works out very cheap that way.
The 5 people don’t need to be your family or live at the same address.

 

[keksikuningas]

That would have been the perfect solution, but the majority of PC users (if not all) have MS loaded on their PCs as default and I don't think iWork documents convert easily to MS. It becomes difficult to work with PC Word users when exchanging documents. For example, I am a translator and almost all the documents I receive are in Word, Excel or Powerpoint (.pdf as well, but even those have to be converted to Word, etc.). Let's say, Microsoft is able to increase its prices regularly because it has the monopoly in the PC market. AI should have helped bring prices down, but it is the contrary. Sorry for venting!!

i only use Numbers in my work but I can imagine Pages to Word being all messed up. No worries about venting, the situation with microsoft office having a stranglehold is quite vexing

 

[mtrm]

Yes. Microsoft 365 is expensive if you get the single person subscription and use it for the Office apps only. But main reason I keep subscribing it is for the cloud storage. Difficult to beat that price for a total of 5TB. Yes, they increased the price because of the AI stuff, but I usually just buy those activations cards on Amazon when they are on sale (at around Black Friday and prime days), and I’m usually good for about 80€ a year. Before the price hike, I could find 15 month cards for about €50~55. Those usually came bundled with an antivirus which I’ve never used, but they usually came cheaper per month than the 12 month versions. I don’t remember ever paying full price, even before the hike. I just keep it on my Amazon basket and check the price every now and then. Right now I’m covered until mid 2027.
Currently I’m sharing my subscription with my partner, so it’s about 40€ a year for each of us, for a full featured office suite + 1TB of storage. Doesn’t seem like a bad deal.

 

[Parowdy]

That would have been the perfect solution, but the majority of PC users (if not all) have MS loaded on their PCs as default and I don't think iWork documents convert easily to MS. It becomes difficult to work with PC Word users when exchanging documents. For example, I am a translator and almost all the documents I receive are in Word, Excel or Powerpoint (.pdf as well, but even those have to be converted to Word, etc.). Let's say, Microsoft is able to increase its prices regularly because it has the monopoly in the PC market. AI should have helped bring prices down, but it is the contrary. Sorry for venting!!

No need to be sorry, I feel your frustration. I feel the same way looking at FaceBook and eBay developing their own models, but still not caring the slightest bit about preventing scams with those models (but I’m mostly mad because they didn’t ever take down a single account I could irrefutably proof to be operated under malicious intent).
Regarding the rest, you can easily export files for Word or as a PDF, however I don’t recall opening Word documents without a hassle, maybe if you have all the same fonts usually used by Microsoft installed on your Mac.
All in all, valid points, I see why iWork isn’t on par with what you’ve used so far.
Hope you’ll find a cost effector solution rather soon.

 

[ForkHandles]

Account vacated.

 

[pareshd]

Hi, MacRumors Users!

I have been using Microsoft 365 for the last two years, but having to pay for a yearly subscription is becoming really too expensive. Just received a reminder for next year's subscription.

I see there is an alternative, Microsoft Office Home, with lifetime validity, and am wondering if buying it would turn out to be less expensive in the end. The 365 is an annual subscription for MS, and it's extremely annoying to feel like a cash-cow being milked every 12 months by MS.

Has anyone in this forum bought/using the Microsoft Office Home version (for Mac) with lifetime validity and what has your experience been like? I am a translator (though I do not use the MS built-in translating feature which uses Google Translate, not very precise), and sometimes have to translate spreadsheets and text in Powerpoint. My translation work is not regular. Sometimes, none at all.

If anyone has had experience with the MOH, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks in advance!

I just saw this Microsoft deal on Groupon. Hope it helps, I haven't used Groupon before, only just now as I was looking for a deal on Nord VPN. Saved about £20 compared to going directly with Nord's offer. https://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/rc-software-1

Libre Office is also good and you can set it to always save documents in Word format.

 

[mdcmdcmdc]

Once you buy Office Home, you own it and can use it forever. But, if you upgrade to a new version of macOS and your version of Office Home isn't compatible, you have to buy it again. OTOH, based on the prices I've seen, Office Home will be less expensive if you can use it for only two years, so that risk may be pretty low. YMMV.

I used LibreOffice exclusively for three or four years, after my previous Office apps (Office 2010 I think) no longer worked with new macOS versions, and up until I bought a 365 family plan because my kids needed it for school. It's a full-featured and very capable suite, with a lot of online support and learning resources.

My main complaint about LibreOffice is that the user interface and menu structure have some strange design choices. For example, in the spreadsheet, there's a single key combination to fill down (command-D, same as MS), but to fill right you have to manually select from two menus deep (with MS, you just do command-R). I often wondered if these choices were made specifically to avoid being sued for looking too much like MS Office.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Once you buy Office Home, you own it and can use it forever. But, if you upgrade to a new version of macOS and your version of Office Home isn't compatible, you have to buy it again. OTOH, based on the prices I've seen, Office Home will be less expensive if you can use it for only two years, so that risk may be pretty low. YMMV.

I used LibreOffice exclusively for three or four years, after my previous Office apps (Office 2010 I think) no longer worked with new macOS versions, and up until I bought a 365 family plan because my kids needed it for school. It's a full-featured and very capable suite, with a lot of online support and learning resources.

My main complaint about LibreOffice is that the user interface and menu structure have some strange design choices. For example, in the spreadsheet, there's a single key combination to fill down (command-D, same as MS), but to fill right you have to manually select from two menus deep (with MS, you just do command-R). I often wondered if these choices were made specifically to avoid being sued for looking too much like MS Office.

It’s not really life time, but lasts few years before you run in to upgrade comparability issues. Yes and indenting in Google Docs makes you run through screens when it is easy in Word. I heard lot of these are copyright issues and patents related to word.

 

[Alameda]

Thank you for taking the time to reply!
I would have liked to move to LibreOffice or OnlyOffice, but most of my clients send me documents in MS, so have to remain in the Microsoft sphere. Just a question: What happens when you receive MS documents? Are you able to open them using OnlyOffice and work on them (eventually saving them as MS documents for those who do not have OnlyOffice)? I am curious. Would appreciate knowing about your experience.

The answer is “It Depends.”

For basic MS Office documents, it’s no problem to open and edit them with Apple’s iWork apps or another tool.

The problems come when you work with complex formatting. For example, I edit data sheets with my team. These use multi-level styles, table of contents, images, captions, footnotes, and we use Word’s review tools to add comments and review edits. That’s when things break down. I assume the same can be true of spreadsheets and it’s definitely true of PowerPoint. Basic PPT slides are no problem, but when you have lots of graphic objects carefully aligned, things break down when you open in a non-MS tool.

I had to move a small datasheet doc to Google Docs for review. Now, Google Docs really isn’t great, so it’s not a fair comparison but I could import the doc and it came through but all of the images were lost so I had to manually replace them all.

I’m not saying that you should not use another tool, I am only trying to explain that “it depends.”

 

[Thirio2]

Opening, working, and sending word documents in pages worked for me if I remembered to save in word format. Unfortunately, not all formulas in excel work in numbers. I used office for Mac until I couldn’t load it after an update. I have been using numbers lately since I seldom need all the features of excel and I do have an old pc with office on it if I get desperate. If you need the features in office I think the single purchase version is a good option.

 

[sxkcb]

I've been using the standalone version for years on my Mac. The main difference between a 365 subscription and the standalone Office is that the 100GB Onedrive storage isn't included in the latter.
Have a look on Amazon or Rakuten, maybe you'll be able to buy it for a bit cheaper than the $180 MSRP.

 

[Abydos]

not sure why cloud storage is attractive , other than that I've used stand alone office on a MBP for over a decade unless you have some files which must be shared I don't see a problem then again there are workarounds for sharing