For what it’s worth, my kids school has Microsoft licenses for each student, and they can log into and use MS apps from multiple devices, including iPads and Macs at home. That’s what we‘ve been doing for the last few years. No need to buy our own license. I think this is a pretty common setup with schools these days.
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Microsoft Launches Office 2024 for Mac and PC
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Microsoft Office is one of the biggest UX disasters in IT history. Not intuitive at all.
I wonder why Microsoft hasn't built its own alternative from scratch, like Apple, and offered it as a parallel choice to the standard Office suite.
On top of that, the Mac and PC versions aren't fully compatible, which I experience all the time, like different bar sizes in charts or missing parts around the edges of pasted vector designs.
I wonder why Microsoft hasn't built its own alternative from scratch, like Apple, and offered it as a parallel choice to the standard Office suite.
On top of that, the Mac and PC versions aren't fully compatible, which I experience all the time, like different bar sizes in charts or missing parts around the edges of pasted vector designs.
Same for many universities. I work at a university hospital which makes me a university employee, so I get their free software perks.
My kids school uses Google.
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I'm pretty sure they mean it's faster than the previous standalone version...not that it's faster than the M365 version. The M365 version is essentially the same/newer than the 2024 version.
You could, but it wouldn't make sense to do that (pay twice). Also, I believe it would change your install license over to a M365 license so you start receiving the new feature updates.
The M365 version is pretty much the same as the 2024. Only difference is the M365 version will continue to get new features. The 2024 version will be stuck with the features it ships with. It will still receive bug fixes and security updates though.
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duh, they want you to sub to 365.
i have 365 subscription. thought about getting 2024 but there is no point. i'd be losing my 1TB cloud storage, Outlook app, and support for MacOS/iOS (W11 is my main platform).
they got me.
Did anyone explain it to you or are you even open to understanding why 365 is popular?
First, subscriptions aren't for everyone. With that said, here's my scenario -- M365 Family is easily had for $75/yr for 12 or 15 months (depending on the deal) from various sites throughout the year. Family license is for 6 people. Doing the math comes out to roughly $12/person per year and can be installed on 5 devices PER PERSON! Plus, MS includes a full 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage PER PERSON. Is that what you call INSANE price? The Office 2024 costs $250. That's 20 years of $12/yr. Office 2024 does not include OneDrive, feature updates, or new versions.
Now, to address your "completely legal license", have you read the license terms? If it even came with one (which I doubt it did), a volume license is NOT legal for resale. PERIOD. So does it activate? Apparently. If you call MS support for help, will they help you? I doubt it. Take your chances but I (and many others) am perfectly happy with using Office 365 with 1TB OneDrive for a full year for LESS than a month of NETFLIX.
EDIT: I should add that Office 2024 doesn't specifically state how many devices your license can be install on. If, like those VL keys that are good on only one device, then the price spread between Office 2024 for 5 people and M365 for 5 people is going to be ridiculously wide.
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Those would be web-app versions and not the actual downloaded and installed versions? Most schools don't allow downloading to the device so is probably the web versions, which isn't the same this as this or M365 subscription.
One could only hope. And also hope for better parity between Windows and Mac versions. The two seem to be developed by different teams that never communicate.
For those using the standalone versions of Office 2019 & 2021, the end of support for Office 2019 is October 14th, 2025. For Office 2021 it's October 13th, 2026. And the new Office 2024 end of support is October 9th, 2029. Of course the software will still work, but there won't be any patches or security updates from Microsoft after those dates.
First of all, don't use MS file types. Txt, md, pdf, LaTeX, etc. are all better. However, there are still troglodytes and for that use case LibreOffice seems to be a very useful solution. I don't have any MS products installed on my business use macs at all any more.
I don't think year identifiers are as important here as they are for products with resale values (like cars) or have brand new releases every year. MS had still been selling Office 2021, which went on sale in October 2021, until this month.
Also, even the standalone Office gets some updates over time.
I got my wife a copy of MS Office 2021 for Mac a couple years ago when one of those sale deals ran. She'd been using LibreOffice but was experiencing too many crashes and freezes. I have Office 365 through my job, and I have it installed on my work Windows laptop, my home Mac, and my home iPad. The only issue I have is that the iPadOS version doesn't format text properly -- for example, second-level headings are bigger than first-level headings. For personal use, though, I've pretty much switched to Pages. I'm still learning how to do certain things in Pages that I know how to do in Word, but at least a document looks the same whether I open it on my Mac or my iPad.
So can you finally create VBA forms in this version?
I think you are reading it wrong. Excel is faster all across the board. There aren't "two versions". You are now getting the current 365 version in this bundle.
Thanks for the tip. WIll have to keep an eye open on Woot from now on.
Having to share documents with Office users. No matter what they tell you cross platforms like that do not work on more complicated spreadsheets. Heck I can't even go between Mac and Windows versions for some of the work I do because it'll break the workbook.
hmmmm...after paying for O365 for years, I might buy this. I'm retiring this year so don't really need the elaborate capabilities anymore
Who knows, I might just crack open Apple Office apps for the first time in about 25 years.
If I was retiring, I would probably never use PowerPoint again, only use Excel to view and analyze public datasets of citizen interest, and only use Word to draft the occasional legal or similar letter. Apple's office's apps are probably fine for that.
Or if I found I needed a little more MS Office-compatability, I would probably use OnlyOffice. The Desktop version is a free download and I've generally found it to have the best .docx compatability.
Does Microsoft Outlook 2024 in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty four support contact lists yet?
I work in a creative industry and we haven't used adobe products since they went subscription. It was hard at first, but we've never looked back.
I think MS tried that years ago with MS Works. Didn't work. Not saying they did it right...
The main reason why people use Office at home is because they use it at work. And the main reason they use it at work is that everyone else at work uses it. And the main reason for that is that is what they were trained on and every other business they collaborate with uses it.
At least that rather than any design or functionality advantage is what I believe sustained it as the de facto standard in business for the past 20 years. However, I see the cycle breaking with Google Docs and the younger generation. Not that that would have been my choice.
I don't think Adobe is hurting, and their users are growing. As I make my living with Adobe CC, I much prefer the subscription and everyone being on the same version than what we had before this with people all over the map on versions. Life is so much simpler and actually a bit cheaper for those who upgraded to each new Adobe release before the subscription service. It is a pro app for pro users, there are other apps that are better suited for hobby users when it comes to graphic work.
Its bad if you need 6 users, or your users change frequently, or you have the software on one/many computers used by multiple users. Various ms o365 shops have been unable to explain how it would actually work in any of these cases.