MS Office 2011 or 2016?

[DisraeliGears]

I'm running '16 and it works pretty flawlessly for whatever I need it for. The only issue I've had is with some strange screen mirroring in Powerpoint, though I haven't really tried to diagnose the issue, it may just be settings I haven't fiddled with. I also find Office 365 to be a bargain, I pay $7.55 monthly, get the newest features plus 1TB of OneDrive space. For Office I can deal with that price.

 

[macbook_21]

Thanks for starting this thread. Great info here.

I have 2011 installed and am amazed by how quickly all of the apps open.

I love the tidy efficiency and ease of use of iwork apps, I must say.

And thanks to whoever recommended libre office. I installed it and again, it opens very quickly.

 

[sracer]

Thanks for starting this thread. Great info here.

I have 2011 installed and am amazed by how quickly all of the apps open.

I love the tidy efficiency and ease of use of iwork apps, I must say.

And thanks to whoever recommended libre office. I installed it and again, it opens very quickly.

Yep, I'm a big fan of LibreOffice.

I've attached an MS_Office_2013 icon set (I didn't create it) for use with LibreOffice. I find that it helps with the look and feel...
How to install the icon set... Make sure that you have run LibreOffice at least once and that you have completely closed it performing these steps.

1. In Finder: Open the "Applications" Folder
2. Locate the LibreOffice icon
3. Right-click on the LibreOffice icon and select "Show Package Contents"
4. (a window opens) Open the "Contents" folder
5. (Contents window opens) Open the "Resources" folder
6. (Resources window opens) Open the "Config" folder
7. (Config window opens) Drag and drop the images_MSOffice_2013.zip file there.
8. Close the window.
9. Open LibreOffice
10. (from the menu) Click on LibreOffice -> Preferences
11. (preferences window opens) Click on "view" in the left side navigation panel
12. (under "icon size and style:") click on the pull-down and select "Office2013"
13. Click on OK.

 

[Traverse]

To be honest, 2016 looks nice, has a UI more aligned with Windows, supports OS X functions such as split view, and updates Excel compatibility with Window's functions (crucial for me). However...

2016 just feels unfinished. Zoom into documents is way too sensitive, scrolling in Excel is WAAAY too sensitive (scrolling down results in also scrolling right). Excel is still slow to apply formulas and crashes with complex spreadsheets. Word and Excel will randomly crash sometimes when my system changes from iGPU to dGPU. Both apps are slow to open.

I'm stuck with 2016 because I need the new Excel functions, but 2011 rarely crashed (but Excel 2011 is slow too).

I have no idea how Excel can still be slow and lag when running on a machine with 16GB of RAM and a quad-core i7 cpu. -__-

 

[chscag]

I have no idea how Excel can still be slow and lag when running on a machine with 16GB of RAM and a quad-core i7 cpu. -__-

That's because Mac Office 2016 is so bloated with code. MS is supposedly working on more fixes for Mac Office 2016 but knowing MS and their history of providing fixes, I would not expect it any time soon.

 

[iTundra]

Now that Office 2016 has a year of updates and fixes under its belt... Have many of the problems, primarily the slow performance been fixed?

 

[AlliePallie]

I have both and, after a minute or two of adjustment, find very little effective difference. As I no longer do editing, Office is getting moved to Shelfware. I now need something that is quick, fast and flexible, and Bean, Nisus or Pages do very well.

 

[iTundra]

Agree. My writing mostly ends up with an editor so I don't need any formatting or special features. Pages is fast and works quite well for me. Neither Bean nor Nisus had any features that swayed me to them over Pages. MarsEdit had some great features for writing blog posts but in the end I found it easier to stick with pages and do blog formatting in WP.

My primary MS Office app and possibly the only one I ever really use is Excel.

 

[Lihp8270]

Office 365 for me. Only because I need to share docx files, and I need references, and equations, and formatting to be guaranteed to work perfectly.

If my stuff was for print, or for me only. I'd be going to Libre Office.

 

[sracer]

I uninstalled MS Office 2016 and reinstalled Office 2011. I don't need the features of 2016 and much rather have the smaller footprint (1.2GB for 2011 vs. 10 GB for 2016), the faster start times, and less-cluttered interface.

On a lark, I took my MS Office 2003 for Windows install and created separate WINE/Wineskin executables for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Publisher. Each weighed in at about 500MB each. And because each was in its own separate WINE config, I had to duplicate my frequently used fonts into each separate WINE config.

That reminded me of one of the criticisms of Office 2016 for Mac and got me thinking that maybe the components of Office 2016 are actually running in some kind of WINE-inspired container. The file size and slow load times are far more consistent with my WINE-packaged Office 2003 than with Office 2011 for Mac.

That (Office 2003 in separate WINE configs) worked surprisingly well. If I ever decided to cancel my Office 365 subscription, I would make do with these.

 

[Freyqq]

Virtualbox running Windows + Office PC is a good option too, if you want to spend a little more. PC version has a lot more features, unfortunately, and 100% compatibility with other PCs. I had an extra copy of Windows 7 and office 2010, which works really well.

 

[chscag]

Office 2010 runs in both WINE and CrossOver. No need to install VirtualBox and Windows 7. And I agree with @sracer that 2016 is bloatware. My copy of 2016 is on the shelf and I too am using 2011.

 

[Crazy Badger]

The 2016 version is much more like the Windows equivalent, so if you are switching between them it's a no-brainer for me.

 

[twinthumbs]

The 2016 version is much more like the Windows equivalent, so if you are switching between them it's a no-brainer for me.

Same here, as I switch between Mac and Windows a lot. I like the newer UI better as well.

 

[smirking]

2016 is annoyingly slow even on an SSD... I just don't get how it could possibly take as long as it does to start up

Make sure you have the latest updates. Well, it's STILL annoyingly slow, but there was a bug that made it insufferably slow for several weeks.

I deal with some really big spreadsheets and Excel is insufferably slow with those. I have Office and there were times when I'd have to use OpenOffice because MS Office was too slow.
[doublepost=1487909886][/doublepost]

OH, I'm running 2008. I didn't realize there was a new version for Mac. I guess it's time to upgrade.

Time to upgrade your ISDN line too.

 

[senseless]

Excel performance has improved a lot since last year, but it's still clunky on my my MacMini. Load time is long for Word or Excel. It sometimes insist on looking online to save files, even though I only specified local disk save.

 

[jwolf6589]

That's because Mac Office 2016 is so bloated with code. MS is supposedly working on more fixes for Mac Office 2016 but knowing MS and their history of providing fixes, I would not expect it any time soon.

Nothing new. Go back to Mac OS 7 and see way back then Mac office was sluggish compared to Windows.

 

[jarekw]

As a heavy user of Excel, my opinion is stay with Office 2011. There is practically no customization (no new ribbon menus, no shortcut icons for macros) possibilities in Excel 2016 which is therefore unusable for me. I have OHS 10.13.2 and for the moment Excel 2011 works perfectly. The only annoying thing is that whenever you modify an Office 2011 file, its tags disappear (before installing OHS it was OK).

 

[flowrider]

^^^^Excel, as well as the the rest of the suite, was heavily overhauled recently with the last update going from V15.43 to V16.9. Have you tried it?

Lou

 

[RedTomato]

^^^^Excel, as well as the the rest of the suite, was heavily overhauled recently with the last update going from V15.43 to V16.9. Have you tried it?

Lou

Excel performance has improved a lot since last year, but it's still clunky on my my MacMini. Load time is long for Word or Excel. It sometimes insist on looking online to save files, even though I only specified local disk save.

How is Excel in Office 2016 now? I'm been perfectly happy with Office 2011, but I am using Excel more and more. A simple filter on a list of only 200 items slows down scrolling to the point it becomes jerky and almost unusable.

I'm strongly considering updating to Office 2016 just to get better Excel performance but that might be a mirage.

(Running on a Macbook Air 13" with SSD)

 

[Audit13]

How is Excel in Office 2016 now? I'm been perfectly happy with Office 2011, but I am using Excel more and more. A simple filter on a list of only 200 items slows down scrolling to the point it becomes jerky and almost unusable.

I'm strongly considering updating to Office 2016 just to get better Excel performance but that might be a mirage.

(Running on a Macbook Air 13" with SSD)

What are the specs for the Air? Could it be that the Air is using a lot of virtual memory? Check memory usage under Activity Monitor?

 

[RedTomato]

What are the specs for the Air? Could it be that the Air is using a lot of virtual memory? Check memory usage under Activity Monitor?

Air has 8GB of RAM so lots of space. Activity Monitor shows Excel using under 100MB of RAM so the problem isn't there.

Vigorous scrolling spikes the Excel process's CPU to 70% or so (i.e. 3/4 of a single core, Air has two cores) but not for long enough to show up on the moving graph which is mostly at 10-15% % overall system load.

So basically something about scrolling while using data filters seems to momentarily max out a CPU core for an instant, hence the stutter.

 

[Audit13]

I'm not sure but the air uses Intel graphics and is quite dated by today's standards. Maybe the cpu usage is spiking because the cpu and gpu are working hard to redraw the screen each time you scroll with a filter. I assume it scrolls fine without a filter.

 

[RedTomato]

I'm not sure but the air uses Intel graphics and is quite dated by today's standards. Maybe the cpu usage is spiking because the cpu and gpu are working hard to redraw the screen each time you scroll with a filter. I assume it scrolls fine without a filter.

It’s just ****** programming in Excel. Huge heavy Chrome pages with multiple embedded playing videos scroll perfectly fine on my laptop. 100 tabs in Chrome is no problem. Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, Final Cut etc all work fine at the same time.

I don’t want to use a financial file as an example, so let’s say I have a list of around 200 film names. 200 lines or so. Three columns: Name; age rating (U,PG,12,15,18); status (unseen, seen, want to watch again).

Let’s say 1000 words total, file size maybe 500KB.

Apply filtering to remove ‘seen’, and ‘15,18’, leaving maybe 100 lines visible.

Boom, jerky scrolling. For gods sake Excel, you’re just moving a bit of text up and down the screen.

 

[Martyimac]

Having been a user of both Office 2011 & 2016, I would suggest staying away from 2016. It could not properly print an envelope first created in 2011 and used for years. Tried creating a new template in 2016 and STILL couldn't print out an envelope. A few other old documents didn't print properly either but the envelope example was the most pronounced. Finally tried LibreOffice which worked flawlessly with all the templates and documents I had. Office 2016 is now consigned to the trash can, forever.