MS Office on M1 Mac vs. MS Office on Intel Windows PCs

[jlc1978]

Chiming in on this somewhat old thread: I'm a heavy user of Office (mostly Word and Excel). I use them on both a lower-end Windows desktop (Core i5-6600 running Windows 10) and a relatively high-end Mac (core i9-9900K iMac running Monterey). Based on their relative GeekBench 6 single-core speeds, the Mac should be ~ 1643/1269 => 30% faster. Thus I find it annoying that, even with the difference in hardware performance, Office is faster and more responsive on my modest Windows computer than on my relatively fast iMac. Plus the Mac is at my desk, while I access the Windows machine via Remote Desktop!

Interesting. I have used Office on an M1 MBP, Windows via VM on M!, and an HP Envy with a mid range AMD chip. The VM and Envy had nearly the same GeekBench scores; and I never noticed any performance differences between the M1 and HP in terms of responsiveness.

The biggest problem I have with Office, whether Windows or Mac, is unreliable integration between Word and Excel. For example, I created a document that uses Excel to analyze data and create charts and the Word with links to the charts and data to create a document. Sometimes the document updates properly when the Excel file is updated and other times it comes out a hot mess.

*Though I can compare them qualitatively: I often experience spinning beacballs when working with Excel in Mac. I can't recall experiencing similar delays with Excel in Windows.

Anecdotally, I have done some Excel work involving numerous tabs with lots of formula references to other tabs, significant amount of conditional formatting, graphs, calculations, and VBA and haven't run into spinning beachballs. Not doubting you do, and I suspect it's a function of how each person uses Office. As the saying goes, YMMV.

In addition, Office for Windows has more functionality than Office for Mac. I've made a few posts on the Microsoft Forums where I've been told the function I'm looking for is available on the PC version but not the Mac version.

Full feature parity, especially add-ins, would be nice.

For me, making Excel Live compatible with macros would be a huge step.

 

[JustAnExpat]

The single reason why Apple is stuck at this market share is price. If Apple keeps the price of the Mac at the current levels, there is absolutely nothing in the world it can do to significantly increase the market share. Perhaps it can get a higher market share in the U.S. But most computer sales come from other countries, which are much more price-sensitive and do not even consider a Mac as an alternative.

I think most people, especially in those countries, will simply not care if a Mac costing over $2,000 will run iOS apps which also have an Android version that can run on a $200 smartphone. And, indeed, many customers, even in the U.S., will think that there is no reason to buy an additional, more expensive device, just to run the very same app that they can run on a device they already have. I mean, a Mac is supposed to perform tasks a smarphone cannot, otherwise what would be the point?

In most countries, the phone is the main computer system, and not a computer. If it's a computer, then it'll be a cheap Chinese made computer running a pirated version of Windows and pirated software, unless the person has money and then a Mac would be purchased.

 

[polyphenol]

Chiming in on this somewhat old thread: I'm a heavy user of Office (mostly Word and Excel). I use them on both a lower-end Windows desktop (Core i5-6600 running Windows 10) and a relatively high-end Mac (core i9-9900K iMac running Monterey). Based on their relative GeekBench 6 single-core speeds, the Mac should be ~ 1643/1269 => 30% faster. Thus I find it annoying that, even with the difference in hardware performance, Office is faster and more responsive on my modest Windows computer than on my relatively fast iMac. Plus the Mac is at my desk, while I access the Windows machine via Remote Desktop!

For instance, fully opening a large Word doc (by "fully open", I mean you are able to scroll to the end) takes a measurable amount of time. This is much more than merely the time it takes to read the data from the SSD. Rather, it's taking a long time because Word needs to fully process and format the document. I have a large Word reference document I use (277 pages, 220 MB). On my Mac, fully opening the document takes 34 s. On my PC, it's 20 s.

That means, at least for this one easily-measurable task, Word runs 34/20 => 70% faster on my i5-6600 PC than on my i9-9900K Mac, when it should actually be running ~30% slower. Thus, adjusting for the difference in computer speeds, at least for this task, Word is 1.7 x 1.3 = 2.2 x as performant on Windows as on Mac OS.

That difference is consistent with the difference in responsiveness I experience—though since reponsiveness is the response time for tasks that typically take <1 s, that's not an attribute I'm able to compare quantitatively.* This, by contrast, is, which is why I chose it.

*Though I can compare them qualitatively: I often experience spinning beacballs when working with Excel in Mac. I can't recall experiencing similar delays with Excel in Windows.

In addition, Office for Windows has more functionality than Office for Mac. I've made a few posts on the Microsoft Forums where I've been told the function I'm looking for is available on the PC version but not the Mac version.

Interesting and thanks for posting.

My Windows box is a reasonable i5 - all SSD - but getting long in the tooth. But I notice little real difference to my M1 mac mini. Some things a little faster, others slower. Things like full update of a substantial ToC are faster on mac.

I just have one major issue - exporting to PDF. On mac, it fails due to the ToC. If I remove the ToC, or chop a bit of the document off, it is fine.

 

[dogface1956]

I used wordstar. it is different from wordperfect

Loved those "." commands

 

[theorist9]

I still remember WordPerfect and its battle with MS Word for word processing supremacy. During the 1980s and early 1990s, WordPerfect actually had a larger user base than Word (called WordStar back then) I remember that law firms, for instance, really liked WordPerfect. And it had a Mac version which was popular. I used WordPerfect on my laptop PC up until about 1997 when Word started to become absolutely dominant everywhere. Microsoft used its enormous leverage to put Word on every PC it could. WordPerfect couldn't compete.

During the 90's I used Word Perfect on a PC. It came with this brillant and wonderful plastic panel that you could lay right above your function keys that would tell what each one did by itself, and with the Shift, Alt, and Ctrl modifiers. These days I switch too quickly between too many different programs for that to be practical, but those were more innocent times .

It occurs to me it might be cool to have a keyboard with four rows of programmable 15-character instructions above each function key, which would automatically change to correspond to what window was front-most (at least on the PC; this wouldn't work as well on the Mac because MacOS uses them as hardware keys). Or you could just get an Elegato Stream Deck....

 

[gilby101]

this wouldn't work as well on the Mac because MacOS uses them as hardware keys

Fluor fixes that, app by app. https://github.com/Pyroh/Fluor/releases

Then use BetterTouchTool or KeyboardMaestro or your keystroke favourite to map function keys (with control, option, command) to provide all the functionality you want.

 

[nothingtoseehere]

That means, at least for this one easily-measurable task, Word runs 34/20 => 70% faster on my i5-6600 PC than on my i9-9900K Mac, when it should actually be running ~30% slower. Thus, adjusting for the difference in computer speeds, at least for this task, Word is 1.7 x 1.3 = 2.2 x as performant on Windows as on Mac OS.

Thanks for measuring. Indeed with my rather old Intel Mac, Office feels more sluggishly than on PCs.

I use MS Office frequently (every day) but modestly. For this use case, my experience is that Apple Silicon makes the difference: No more sluggishness, everything feels very responsive and fine.

What annoys me recently is the so-called "New Outlook" for Mac. It lacks many features that are essential for me. For the moment, we can get back to "legacy Outlook", but should this option be nixed, this will be a serious blow for using MS 365 on the Mac, at least for me.

 

[theorist9]

Thanks for measuring. Indeed with my rather old Intel Mac, Office feels more sluggishly than on PCs.

I use MS Office frequently (every day) but modestly. For this use case, my experience is that Apple Silicon makes the difference: No more sluggishness, everything feels very responsive and fine.

I've heard, anecdotally from you and others, that AS is less sluggish with Office. I'll be interested to see if that's the case for my workflow, whenever I upgrade.

What annoys me recently is the so-called "New Outlook" for Mac. It lacks many features that are essential for me. For the moment, we can get back to "legacy Outlook", but should this option be nixed, this will be a serious blow for using MS 365 on the Mac, at least for me.

My concern, if they get rid of Legacy, is that I dislike the look of the New Outlook interface. It seems busier to me, making it harder to distinguish unread and read email.

 

[CalMin]

I've heard, anecdotally from you and others, that AS is less sluggish with Office. I'll be interested to see if that's the case for my workflow, whenever I upgrade.


My concern, if they get rid of Legacy, is that I dislike the look of the New Outlook interface. It seems busier to me, making it harder to distinguish unread and read email.

I use Office pretty heavily and it's gotten a lot better than it used to be. Windows will always be ahead because, well, Microsoft is always going to want their platform to shine over the competition.

As for Outlook, I hated it initially too, but I have accepted it as the future and forced myself to adapt to it. If you give it time, it's actually pretty good as a client and I would know because I spend 6-8 hours a day in Outlook 🤪. I'd still like to keep local archives like the Legacy Outlook, but assuming you use Exchange, then most corporate quotas are big enough now that I don't need to worry about space like I used to.

 

[it wasnt me]

To my surprise, WordPerfect is still around, Corel releases a new version every few years (along with Quattro Pro, but that is really very neglected). I even used it myself from time to time until last year, just before I retired my last Windows PC. But I really write few letters. I wonder if Corel will port WordPerfect to macOS - CorelDRAW already was.

Loved those "." commands

You can still use them! After all, there is WordTsar, a pretty good clone of WordStar's document mode. I am one of the too few macOS users, but the author (he is indeed an author, mostly science fiction) of the software is happy about every bug report. There are visibly fewer and fewer bugs.

As WordTsar "only" supports RTF and the WordStar 7 format (DOCX is in progress), I wrote an additional software and I wonder if anyone might want to have it: ws2markdown converts WordStar documents into Markdown. Pandoc still can't do that.

 

[polyphenol]

To my surprise, WordPerfect is still around, Corel releases a new version every few years (along with Quattro Pro, but that is really very neglected). I even used it myself from time to time until last year, just before I retired my last Windows PC. But I really write few letters. I wonder if Corel will port WordPerfect to macOS - CorelDRAW already was.



You can still use them! After all, there is WordTsar, a pretty good clone of WordStar's document mode. I am one of the too few macOS users, but the author (he is indeed an author, mostly science fiction) of the software is happy about every bug report. There are visibly fewer and fewer bugs.

As WordTsar "only" supports RTF and the WordStar 7 format (DOCX is in progress), I wrote an additional software and I wonder if anyone might want to have it: ws2markdown converts WordStar documents into Markdown. Pandoc still can't do that.

Somewhat to one side...

Unfortunately, there are some CorelDraw features that do not exist in the macOS version. (Afraid I don't know what they are but someone close uses it and finds she still has to use Windows.)

 

[it wasnt me]

Good to know.

 

[Vivid City]

I've heard that Microsoft have put considerable effort into making Office run exceptionally fast on Windows. Specifically, core parts are written in assembly language which runs faster than the high-level languages (such as C, C++ and C#) which software is usually written in. Thus it's not just that Office on other platforms is slower but more that Office on Windows is faster.

Office on Mac or third-part Office clones don't have the developer resources (or the management will to commit those resources) to optimise their code to this extent.

 

[it wasnt me]

Specifically, core parts are written in assembly language which runs faster than the high-level languages (such as C, C++ and C#) which software is usually written in.

This is not quite correct. Try to write faster native assembly code than my C compiler could produce. Chances are you won't.

Office on Windows is faster.

Given that Office on Windows is already a snail, I wonder how annoying it must be to run it on Macs.

 

[SalisburySam]

To my surprise, WordPerfect is still around, Corel releases a new version every few years (along with Quattro Pro, but that is really very neglected).

Aaah, a trip down memory lane. I loved QuattroPro and Borland’s Paradox product as a wonderful alternative to then-nascent Access. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[it wasnt me]

Indeed, Paradox is still there as well:

WordPerfect Office | Free Trial

See why WordPerfect Office is a legendary leader in office suites! Whether you're a student or professional, if you want true office suite power, WordPerfect Office has an option for you at the price you need. Try it free today.

www.wordperfect.com

 

[polyphenol]

I've heard that Microsoft have put considerable effort into making Office run exceptionally fast on Windows. Specifically, core parts are written in assembly language which runs faster than the high-level languages (such as C, C++ and C#) which software is usually written in. Thus it's not just that Office on other platforms is slower but more that Office on Windows is faster.

Office on Mac or third-part Office clones don't have the developer resources (or the management will to commit those resources) to optimise their code to this extent.

So what do they do for ARM Windows?

I suspect the assembler code might not run so well...

 

[jlc1978]

Given that Office on Windows is already a snail, I wonder how annoying it must be to run it on Macs.

I run Office on an base M1 MBP, under Parallels on ARM Windows, and on an HP Envy with a midlevel Ryzen chip and see no speed difference, even with macros, VB code and lots of calculations/references/worksheets.

 

[bousozoku]

During the 90's I used Word Perfect on a PC. It came with this brillant and wonderful plastic panel that you could lay right above your function keys that would tell what each one did by itself, and with the Shift, Alt, and Ctrl modifiers. These days I switch too quickly between too many different programs for that to be practical, but those were more innocent times .

It occurs to me it might be cool to have a keyboard with four rows of programmable 15-character instructions above each function key, which would automatically change to correspond to what window was front-most (at least on the PC; this wouldn't work as well on the Mac because MacOS uses them as hardware keys). Or you could just get an Elegato Stream Deck....

View attachment 2246442

Ha! I remember attempting to write a document on various DOS-based machines in 1990 and couldn't figure out how to use the word processors. I'd had some experience with Wordstar but it wasn't to be found. WordPerfect didn't have any way to display functionality and I gave up and found the closest Mac with MS Word 4.0.
😁

 

[bousozoku]

To my surprise, WordPerfect is still around, Corel releases a new version every few years (along with Quattro Pro, but that is really very neglected). I even used it myself from time to time until last year, just before I retired my last Windows PC. But I really write few letters. I wonder if Corel will port WordPerfect to macOS - CorelDRAW already was.

...

WordPerfect Corp. had WordPerfect on Mac, with reveal codes and all. Then, they discontinued it and the developers created a separate word processor, at a newly-funded company. I'm thinking that it was called WAV but I don't remember with any certainty. They were making the most out of an object-binding technology that Apple and IBM co-developed.