Microsoft Launches Office 2024 for Mac and PC

[jaehaerys48]

I vastly prefer Pages and Keynote to Word and Powerpoint. Took me a while to get used to them after growing up using Microsoft Office, but nowadays I wouldn't think to go back. Keynote in particular is really underrated, you can even do some simple graphic design in it.

Excel is better than Numbers, though. But I find that for most casual usage Google Sheets is better than Excel.

In my workplace (an education environment) we can use both Google Docs and Microsoft Office. I'd say that around 90% of people use Google Docs. Office is really only used by the older employees. Most of the students just use Google as well. Chromebooks really broke the hold that Word and Powerpoint used to have over students in America.

Still, some people do need Microsoft Office for their work, so I'm glad that MS is continuing to release new versions of it for Mac OS.

 

[Daul]

Where is MS Access?

There is no Access for Mac at all.

 

[Daul]

That interface is such a train wreck, an overload of confusing visual information.

It’s daunting at first but I appreciate it because it lays nearly every function out as well organized as possible and doesn’t try to hide or bury anything for the sake of the appearance or the illusion of simplicity.
Numbers does the exact opposite and that’s why I can’t stand it. Everything but formatting is buried in menus.

 

[BipedalOS]

Why call it "2024" when we're almost in Q4?! It will look obsolete almost as soon as it launches...

Because it’s released in 2024.

Also why pay $150 or $250 when you can get constant updates with a subscription. Just do a month to month and only pay for months you need it or buy the web only version for like $6/mo and enjoy a free 50GB mailbox.

 

[Siliconguy]

I’m glad the free Pages/Keynote/Numbers has everything I need.

I'm glad the free Libreoffice has everything I need and runs on Macs as well as Linux.

Why Pages/Keynote/Numbers don't support ODF is a mystery. I'm certainly not doing conversion from ODF to Excel then to ODF or from ODF to Excel then to Numbers.

The latest version of Libreoffice still supports Catalina.

 

[Bremse]

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.

No, we can download the programs through the kid’s school MS accounts.

 

[Bremse]

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.

Yes, my wife teaches some remote classes on the side at a large university and has access to all of their site licensed software. Full Adobe suite, etc. We could use MS Office through her as well (she does on her MacBook). She also qualifies for various edu/teacher discounts (25% off AT&T plans for example). I told her she can’t ever quit that gig

 

[svish]

Good to see that Microsoft still has a one time purchase/license option.

 

[Mainsail]

Does it work without a Microsoft account?

I never understood why people pay insane amounts of money for a subscription. You can buy a completely legal license for a full version of Microsoft Office Professional for less than $20. Those licenses come from companies who bought thousands of licenses and do not need them all.

If people accept subscriptions for office software, Microsoft might one day make Windows a subscription.

We have an Office 365 family subscription for 5 computers plus all mobile devices. It's $99 per year. These devices are located all over the country because our adult children live all over the country at various universities and job locations. New versions and updates are included with the subscription and done automatically through the App Store. It just seems easier and more convenient to get the subscription and share it with the family. I am not sure I would be worth the hassle and save me much money if I bought individual licenses for every device each time a new major version is released.

 

[O.N.Y.X]

I'm glad the free Libreoffice has everything I need and runs on Macs as well as Linux.

Why Pages/Keynote/Numbers don't support ODF is a mystery. I'm certainly not doing conversion from ODF to Excel then to ODF or from ODF to Excel then to Numbers.

The latest version of Libreoffice still supports Catalina.

Libreoffice would be my Pages/Keynote/Numbers replacement on Linux as well. I’m still gaming on Win 10 but have no plans to upgrade to Win 11 as Linux has become a more widely adopted alternative gaming platform.

 

[Ifti]

I get MS software free through work - just downloaded Office LTSC Standard for MAC 2024 along with the digital serializer that activates it.
Although I rarely use office I may install it, considering its free, and also Ive noticed that on the odd occasion I do open Word it seems to take a lot longer to launch then other applications. Maybe 2024 will open faster! lol

 

[Zendokan]

I've got my MS Office Home & Business 2021 and my previous version was MS Office 2010 bought in 2011.
The 2010 version still covered all my needs, but I bought in 2021 a M1 MBP, so a different architecture and after 11 years switching to newer version could be justified ;-)

Let's see how long the 2021 version will cover my needs.

 

[marril]

Microsoft Office 2024: Proprietary/closed source, costs $240 or more, restricted, extremely buggy and bloated.

LibreOffice: Free and open source, supports every major platform and formats, is clean and runs very fast.

The moment I moved from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice in 2020, I never looked back.
It's the same type of software, but there is no lag or slow moments, and I no longer need to pay for office software.

 

[Chancha]

I spent 15 minutes digging and still can't find this info, if anyone knows:
does this Office 2024 perpetual license run on a per-machine base? With 365 it is personnel based and there is a generous device limit per head (5 PC/Mac/large tablets, unlimited mobile devices)

 

[MacFarmer]

This is all good and well, but I'm considering other alternatives. And the only reason is that some releases ago, each of the applications used to be around 400-600 MB in size. After they introduced new design, they became 2 GB each. I do not understand why it needs so much space for the same task. Did the code base changed? But why make it so bloated?

 

[chucker23n1]

This is all good and well, but I'm considering other alternatives. And the only reason is that some releases ago, each of the applications used to be around 400-600 MB in size. After they introduced new design, they became 2 GB each. I do not understand why it needs so much space for the same task. Did the code base changed? But why make it so bloated?

They became a lot larger when they made them ready for the Mac App Store.

Previously, they shared a lot of code that they put somewhere in /Library. This approach wasn’t compatible with the MAS sandboxing requirements; each app needs to be largely self-contained. So they did that. As a result, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. each have a lot of frameworks inside their app bundles that are bit for bit identical across each other.

The upside is that you can pretty much uninstall an app by dragging it to the trash; it leaves a lot less residue.

 

[Chancha]

They became a lot larger when they made them ready for the Mac App Store.

Previously, they shared a lot of code that they put somewhere in /Library. Thus approach wasn’t compatible with the MAS sandboxing requirements; each app needs to be largely self-contained. So they did that. As a result, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. each have a lot of frameworks inside their app bundles that are bit for bit identical across each other.

The upside is that you can pretty much uninstall an app by dragging it to the trash; it leaves a lot less residue.

The biggest advantage of using the App Store version is the ability to *not* install the MS updater app.

 

[cjsuk]

That interface is such a train wreck, an overload of confusing visual information.

It is discoverable which is the important bit. Unlike Numbers/Pages which is mostly scrabbling around in the dust and entirely unusable driving it via the keyboard.

Notably most of the more seasoned users tend to use it without much user interface enabled and use the keyboard. For example if I'm using Excel it looks like this...

 

[cjsuk]

The biggest advantage of using the App Store version is the ability to *not* install the MS updater app.

You can turn this off easily.

As for deployment, mine is an LTSC version deployed with a VL key after installing the following directly linked packages: https://massgrave.dev/office_for_mac (mine is corp licensed so this is ok)

 

[tomekwsrod]

You can turn this off easily.

As for deployment, mine is an LTSC version deployed with a VL key after installing the following directly linked packages: https://massgrave.dev/office_for_mac (mine is corp licensed so this is ok)

How to disable it easily?

 

[jayducharme]

For example if I'm using Excel it looks like this...

View attachment 2432181

Interesting. That looks just like Numbers.

 

[cjsuk]

How to disable it easily?

It's in Settings. Search for Login Items:

 

[cjsuk]

Interesting. That looks just like Numbers.

Except it works like Excel, which is much better.

 

[Skyscraperfan]

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

In the EU courts have ruled that resale of licenses is legal. Microsoft also tried to sell "OEM versions" of its software. Those version were bound to a specific PC and if your PC was broken, you could not use the license for a new one. That was illegal after EU law and Microsoft had to change it. So now even activation via phone works with those licenses.

Imagine you buy furniture at IKEA and IKEA tells you that you can only use that furniture in one home and if you move, you need to buy new furniture. That sounds ridiculous, but Microsoft tried that with software.

Consumer rights are very low in the US.

 

[cjsuk]

Microsoft Office 2024: Proprietary/closed source, costs $240 or more, restricted, extremely buggy and bloated.

LibreOffice: Free and open source, supports every major platform and formats, is clean and runs very fast.

The moment I moved from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice in 2020, I never looked back.
It's the same type of software, but there is no lag or slow moments, and I no longer need to pay for office software.

This is absolute garbage though. I don't use LibreOffice because I keep falling over show stopping bugs which have either been rotting in bugzilla for over a decade or so.

Great example is LibreOffice calc documents take 2-3 minutes to open if you last printed to a printer that is no longer connected to the machine, such as if you have a laptop.

Not only that is it mutilates its own documents as well as any of them you pull in from xlsx files and yes I do actually have to work with other people so this is important.