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Office 2016 - Upgrade now or wait?

superleccy

superleccy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 31, 2004
997
187
That there big London
Hi

My Mac is a bit long in the tooth (see sig) and I'm wondering if I should wait to upgrade to Office 2016, or stick with 2011 for the time being. I have an Office365 subscription so I can take the plunge whenever I want.

What's everyone's experience on Performance, Stability and Compatibility?

And, does it trash your installation of 2011, or install alongside 2011?

Cheers
SL
 
On my 2013 iMac and Macbook Air, Office 2016 ran OK but was dog slow to launch... over 40 seconds on the iMac and and over 20 on the MBA. 2011 was a small executable that loaded library files as needed. 2016 takes the all-in-one approach... huge packages (Word is 1.77Gb) that have to sift through a lot of code to actually get up and running. It will run just fine along side your 2011 install.
 
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I use it at work and I find it quite buggy and slow even the fact I run it on a MBPr mid-2015 with 16gb of ram. Outlook has crashed several times and when you open shared calendars the program seems to take forever. Powerpoint is slow when it opens large PPTs as well.

I updated to 15.14 yesterday so I really hope that this will solve some of the problem. But you can run 2016 at the same time as 2011 if you want to test.
 
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I'm also in limbo. I qualify for the Microsoft HUP programme, which is (thankfully) very affordable - but they still only offer Microsoft Office for Mac 2011... Hoping they will update it to include the new Mac version - but nothing out there seems to indicate when that might be... Guess I'll wait a bit longer then...
 
I'm not impressed with Office 2016 after having run the Preview up until the final release. The overall look and feel is different than Office 2011 and seems to be a bit slower. Also, it appears that the stand alone version of Office 2016 can only be purchased direct from the Microsoft Store and requires a MS account. And unless I missed something there is no option to purchase or obtain a backup disk. Download only.
 
do you guys know if excel 2016 comes with the quick analysis tool ? I keep using my old windows computer because i can't seem to find the tool on the Mac version.
 
And, to the OP, if you've got an O365 sub there's no reason to hold off on installing the updated suite. The newer install won't remove the 2011 install. There are some differences, but I'll leave that to you to review. MS stated that they'll be leaving the 2011 suite behind in short order except for security updates. If you use Outlook, the new version (issued just a few days ago) FINALLY gained the ability to export and improved on import capabilities.

Honestly, I haven't turned back to Office 2011 for several weeks, with the caveat that I do fire up my Windows VM to use Office 2013 - preferring the Windows suite to the Mac 2016 suite; I installed Office 2016 today but haven't tried it out yet except for Outlook.

An afterthought. Make sure you have some disk space for Office 2016. All of those Resources in that "Office" folder with your 2011 install are included in EACH of the newer MS Office apps - to the tune of about 3GB extra for a complete install, and there's no way to get around the inclusion of French/Arabic/Russian/English/English-GB/etc/etc/etc/etc resources in each of the 5 apps. :mad::mad::mad:
 
Is is so SLOW to launch. Its performance is abysmal, as well, when compared with 2011. Takes forever to launch and there is a slight lag when clicking on menus.
 
In case anyone is interested, Mac Mall has the stand alone Mac 2016 Home and Student version for $139.99 and free shipping. It's a box set and includes license for one Mac. Mac Mall does not charge state sales tax except for California residents.
 
I have been using Office 2016 since the preview came out. It is much better now that it has been officially released, i.e. all the features work now. It is much slower than Office 2011. That is my only complaint. It works great with SharePoint online and SharePoint 2013. The interface is better than 2011. I just wish it were faster.
 
jahala said:
I have been using Office 2016 since the preview came out. It is much better now that it has been officially released, i.e. all the features work now. It is much slower than Office 2011. That is my only complaint. It works great with SharePoint online and SharePoint 2013. The interface is better than 2011. I just wish it were faster.
Click to expand...

My complaint isn't about its speed. The Preview was just as fast or faster on my 2013 iMac with discrete graphics and 16 GB of memory. I just don't like the new interface and the lighter background. They also took away the ability to modify the Ribbon. I only use Word and Powerpoint and least Powerpoint is a slight improvement. However, the Windows version is still better. :(
 
chscag said:
My complaint isn't about its speed. The Preview was just as fast or faster on my 2013 iMac with discrete graphics and 16 GB of memory. I just don't like the new interface and the lighter background. They also took away the ability to modify the Ribbon. I only use Word and Powerpoint and least Powerpoint is a slight improvement. However, the Windows version is still better. :(
Click to expand...

Windows version of Outlook and Excel is by far better. Mac version is a joke compared. Sometimes I think this is a strategy by Microsoft so "professional" office users will reconsider the move to Mac.
 
I've had no problems with Office 2016 since it released months ago on 365. Use all three apps heavily. Ended up deleting 2011. Finding it very stable compared to 2011 on my mid 2011 iMac and 2010 MacBook.
 
Cassady said:
I'm also in limbo. I qualify for the Microsoft HUP programme, which is (thankfully) very affordable - but they still only offer Microsoft Office for Mac 2011... Hoping they will update it to include the new Mac version - but nothing out there seems to indicate when that might be... Guess I'll wait a bit longer then...
Click to expand...
I'm also waiting for this. According to a comment on the MS blog:

https://blogs.office.com/2015/09/22/thenewoffice/

"Thanks for your comment Trebuin. Office 2016 for Windows and Office 2016 for Mac will be available through the Home Use Program in early October."
 
jimZon said:
Windows version of Outlook and Excel is by far better. Mac version is a joke compared. Sometimes I think this is a strategy by Microsoft so "professional" office users will reconsider the move to Mac.
Click to expand...

The thing is... Microsoft Office for the Mac has been a "cash cow" for Microsoft for many years. Folks forget that the original version of Word and Excel first ran on the Mac many years ago during Jobs' first run with Apple. Microsoft is all about dollars and with Macs now being able to run Windows, I can't see them discouraging the move to the Mac platform.
 
chscag said:
The thing is... Microsoft Office for the Mac has been a "cash cow" for Microsoft for many years. Folks forget that the original version of Word and Excel first ran on the Mac many years ago during Jobs' first run with Apple. Microsoft is all about dollars and with Macs now being able to run Windows, I can't see them discouraging the move to the Mac platform.
Click to expand...

Well, a move to Mac is one less Windows license... that my five cents about it.
 
campyguy said:
And, to the OP, if you've got an O365 sub there's no reason to hold off on installing the updated suite. The newer install won't remove the 2011 install. There are some differences, but I'll leave that to you to review. MS stated that they'll be leaving the 2011 suite behind in short order except for security updates. If you use Outlook, the new version (issued just a few days ago) FINALLY gained the ability to export and improved on import capabilities.

Honestly, I haven't turned back to Office 2011 for several weeks, with the caveat that I do fire up my Windows VM to use Office 2013 - preferring the Windows suite to the Mac 2016 suite; I installed Office 2016 today but haven't tried it out yet except for Outlook.

An afterthought. Make sure you have some disk space for Office 2016. All of those Resources in that "Office" folder with your 2011 install are included in EACH of the newer MS Office apps - to the tune of about 3GB extra for a complete install, and there's no way to get around the inclusion of French/Arabic/Russian/English/English-GB/etc/etc/etc/etc resources in each of the 5 apps. :mad::mad::mad:
Click to expand...
MS Office 2016 for Mac requires Yosemite. That might be an issue for the OP if he's running something older.

That makes Office 2016 a non-starter for me. I won't be upgrading to Yosemite, but I'll consider upgrading to OSX Eric Clapton when it is released.
 
sracer said:
MS Office 2016 for Mac requires Yosemite. That might be an issue for the OP if he's running something older.
Click to expand...
No offense, I'm not in the habit of restating MS's system requirements - MS made the OS requirements are quite clear and I surmised that OP is aware of that. Word 2016 is working fine on a 2009 iMac running 10.10 in my office.
 
campyguy said:
No offense, I'm not in the habit of restating MS's system requirements - MS made the OS requirements are quite clear and I surmised that OP is aware of that. Word 2016 is working fine on a 2009 iMac running 10.10 in my office.
Click to expand...
You told the OP that there is "no reason to hold off" upgrading to Office 2016. If one is running a version of OSX older than Yosemite THAT is a reason to hold off.
 
jimZon said:
I updated to 15.14 yesterday so I really hope that this will solve some of the problem. But you can run 2016 at the same time as 2011 if you want to test.
Click to expand...

Any problems running both the 2011 and 2016 versions on the same machine? I remember when I installed the 2011 version alongside my 2008 version that it did create some glitches. I'm sure my documents will be OK, but what about my user templates, fonts, and images?
 
I find Excel scrolling to be WAY too sensitive for horizontal scrolling. When scrolling down a large sheet, I often shoot over several columns to the right.
 
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