Unfortunately I've been hiding away in "school" for the past few years and have always had MS Office through various education routes. In the past, it had been standalone applications and then in the more recent years, I feel it's been the Office 365 "subscription" that has been included with my .edu email address at the schools. Now I'm realizing that my subscription has ended since I'm out of school and it will only let me view my MS Office documents, but obviously not save them and can't really work on them. So I haven't looked at MS Office in the past few years, but at this point, what's the consensus on the best way to utilize their services? For background, it's me and my wife, each with a laptop and possibly a home desktop - so at least 3 computers, 2 users. Probably couldn't make the single license work, so would need a family one? I have a new MBP coming in so would like the version to be optimized for M1 chips. But what's the consensus? It looks like I can purchase a standalone version of MS Office 2021 (although would likely need at least 2 for 2 people right, and even that's only 2 computers?) or pay $69/year for a single subscription vs $99/year for family subscription? Man, I miss school haha! Thanks.
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Best Option for MS Office in 2021? Standalone purchase? Subscription? 365?
- Thread starter Blazer5913
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You don't make mention of your need for MS Office other than you have files in Office format. If you are like most people, your Office documents have only simple document formatting. In that case, you can use alternatives like ONLYOFFICE, WPS Office, LibreOffice (all free and have high compatibility with MS Office documents that have simple-to-moderate formatting)... Apple Pages/Numbers/Keynote and Google Docs do a decent job in compatibility but not as good as those previous three.
I recommend giving those first three a try and testing them against your documents. You might be pleasantly surprised by how good a job they do.
If those options don't work for you, then the only practical choice for you is Office 365. There's a lot of flexibility with that for multiple devices in a household and 1TB of OneDrive storage for up to 5 people on your account.
Appreciate the help and thanks for the response! Although I myself would be willing to try something "new" like those apps, my wife is very "by the book" and would explode if anything but a Microsoft product came up for documents/presentations/etc. Good idea for sure though!
If you are just using Excel Word and PowerPoint, the standalone software might be fine. It will likely keep current for many years. However office 365 subscriptions come with some nice features, including storag, always updated software , additional software like firms, the ability to access and use the online versions of the products. It’s painful to pay one more subscription price, but I have found it’s worth it. It’s been a few years since I have done a direct comparison. Maybe go down the list of extra features for office 365 subscription to determine what you would actually use.
I completely understand. But I would still suggest ONLYOFFICE and WPS Office. They both closely mimic MS Office in look and feel. They're free so they're worth giving it a try... if your wife explodes, that's what home insurance is for.
If you have 3 computers, ya a 365 subscription might be the way to go, unfortunately. The standalone licenses can only be installed on 1 computer each and they don't sell a "family" standalone license.
Feature-wise, the only thing you really miss out on with the 2021 license is a lot of cloud based collaboration tools. Although the 365 subscription does come with cloud storage through One Drive. So if you are currently paying for iCloud storage or Dropbox, you could maybe end up using One Drive instead of that.
Another option is to get your wife a 2021 license for their computer, and then get a single user 365 subscription to use on the other two computers. Or maybe get one 2021 license for your wife and use LibreOffice on the other two computers etc.
Recently Microsoft has been having "Black Friday" sales on an annual 365 subscription, so you can keep your eyes out for that too. Microsoft loves the subscription model and keeps doing all they can to push everyone onto that.
Feature-wise, the only thing you really miss out on with the 2021 license is a lot of cloud based collaboration tools. Although the 365 subscription does come with cloud storage through One Drive. So if you are currently paying for iCloud storage or Dropbox, you could maybe end up using One Drive instead of that.
Another option is to get your wife a 2021 license for their computer, and then get a single user 365 subscription to use on the other two computers. Or maybe get one 2021 license for your wife and use LibreOffice on the other two computers etc.
Recently Microsoft has been having "Black Friday" sales on an annual 365 subscription, so you can keep your eyes out for that too. Microsoft loves the subscription model and keeps doing all they can to push everyone onto that.
The Microsoft 365 family option is not a bad deal. $100 per year for up to 6 users, and you can install on multiple devices per user.