Upgrade to Office 2011 or 2016

[BobD2]

The best alternative to MS Office that I have found other than the free LibreOffice or Open Office, is SoftMaker Office. They have a free version you can try out and also several pay versions. Download their trial version and try it out for awhile. It's fully functional for 30 days. I found it to be a very good alternative to MS Office. And it's 64 bit so it will continue to work after Mojave.

I downloaded SoftMaker Office and have given it a brief try. Seems pretty good. At least one glitch, however. I opened a Microsoft Word file that I had prepared some time ago. In addition to text (9 total pages), it had MS Word tables and some graphs (scatter plots created in another program) and a couple of pictures copied from the web. TextMaker 2018 opened the Word document with correct formatting (including all tables), and imported the two pictures that I had copied from the web, but did not import the graphs. In place of the graphs, there were blank spaces of the size of the missing graphs. The text below the missing graphs was in the right place on the page in all cases, but the graphs were missing. Curiously, I went back to the original program that generated the plots (Kaleidagraph from Synergy Software), and was able to copy them correctly into a blank TextMaker document. And I was able to resize them without distortion within the TextMaker document. The graphs, now within any of the SoftMaker modules, could be copied and pasted into Word or PowerPoint.

The reverse operation did not work: the graph, now in PowerPoint (or Word), could not be then selected and copied into any of the SoftMaker modules. No error messages -- nothing happens upon Paste.

I encountered no such compatibility issue with moving these plots between Word (or PowerPoint) and Apple's Pages or Keynote.

Makes me wonder what the MS products are doing to a graphical object when it is within a document (still using Office 14.7.2). I may contact the Softmaker developers to see what they have to say about this.

The spreadsheet module (called PlanMaker) was able to open a MS Excel workbook that had multiple worksheets, and all worksheets were present, including formatting (coloring of cells, etc.) and formulas. Regions of data in the Excel worksheets that had been previously selected (and never deselected prior to saving and closing) were also selected upon opening in PlanMaker.

Based on my brief exposure to this, it looks like the SoftMaker modules could be a very viable option to MSO if/when I decide to make a change.

 

[Gregg2]

The best alternative to MS Office that I have found other than the free LibreOffice or Open Office, is SoftMaker Office. They have a free version you can try out and also several pay versions. Download their trial version and try it out for awhile. It's fully functional for 30 days. I found it to be a very good alternative to MS Office. And it's 64 bit so it will continue to work after Mojave.

I've been using the free version successfully for a few months. I don't need the sophisticated functions MS Office offers, or the paid versions of SoftMaker. I've tried Libre Office in the past, and the thing I especially like about SoftMaker is that files don't have to be converted to another .whatever as Libre Office files are.

 

[TonyK]

MS Office is available as a one-time purchase. We are looking at the Office 2019. Student/Home Office is something like $149USD. It is download only distribution so be prepared for a long download.

 

[harriska2]

Whichever version you chose I recommend getting one built for business such as home and business. Outlook is included in home and business which enables sorting emails alphabetically by sender or subject which can be handy when dealing with hundreds of emails especially if the risk missing email would be problematic.

The main reason I bought Mac mini to replace my Windows 7 machine was to get away from Outlook. Yes it can sort. But so can Mac Mail.

 

[bladerunner616]

I know his is really late but I got a legit copy of 2016 and have been very happy with. Saves me huge amounts of money over the subscription model.

Thanks to everyone that gave constructive input.