Who is using Microsoft software with the M series Macs?

[mac_head]

I am currently using two dell pcs that I enjoy, but I am very interested in MacOS for my Pc use. Who here is using MS software like office 365, onedrive, onenote etc on their macbook/mac? How do you find the integration?

I’m using it all day, every day. Works flawless for me. I store all my documents in OneDrive and they are right there when I launch any of the Office Apps. It’s a while ago that I used Office on Windows, so I can’t give any insights in how they stack up against each other. I’m sure you’d have to get used to some UI changes, but once you’re past that I think there’s nothing to look back to

 

[mi7chy]

There are differences you should be aware of...

https://spreadsheeto.com/mac-vs-windows/

 

[snak-atak]

Only one I really can complain about is Teams. Teams has never been a good application no matter if it was on intel or M-series mac nor on Windows PC. So my Teams issues are more down to it being junk software.

The quality of Teams depends largely on how the organization has it configured. The same for the rest of the Office suite but even more so for Teams. I’ve worked with a number of companies where the setup is so very different. A couple had great IT that knew what they were doing. Teams, OneNote, Outlook, Office, all worked flawlessly together which made for great productivity. Dozens of us collaborating on spreadsheets and OneNote, and working most of the day on Teams meetings, etc.

But most others had/have lots of quirks and inefficiencies which really slow you down.

My experiences were with the same equipment (in my case Mac Studio M1 Max) but logged onto different companies so I know it’s not my machine or license. It’s how it’s setup at the company that determines how well it’s gonna work.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

I am currently using two dell pcs that I enjoy, but I am very interested in MacOS for my Pc use. Who here is using MS software like office 365, onedrive, onenote etc on their macbook/mac? How do you find the integration?

Hello! I switched to Mac back in 2021 and Office 365 integration has been rock solid for me. All my Microsoft apps work just as they would've on Windows so it's as if I never left.

Definitely give Mac a try you'll love it. If you want recommendations for what Mac to get we can help with that.

 

[WilliApple]

The only thing I use that is Microsoft on my Mac is Visual Studio Code.

And I barely even use it, It is just a nice IDE if I want to save some Swift or Lua code.

 

[Velli]

I have used Office on both platforms extensively, but not in ways that most would call advanced use. My summary is that Office for MacOs is surprisingly better designed and smoother to use, however it lacks many advanced features from the Windows version. Better, but simpler. So it’s all about whether the features you need are covered.

 

[c84216]

The Office suite is well done on macOS, but it lacks pro features and other apps like 95% of Power Query in Excel, Power BI, the Power Automate app, Access (although it's dying)...

My office is a Mac office but I'm limited to a dinky Dell laptop that chokes on its own boot up process because I need PowerQuery and PowerBI for my job. PowerBI looks to me to be an Electron app (or whatever they call it now). If they'd just port it, I'd scream for a Mac without blinking.

 

[spiderman0616]

I have been using the full suite of MS Office/365/whatever products for several years on Macs now and currently use them all on my M1 Pro 16" Pro (My company computer).

I find their software on Mac and iOS/iPadOS to be great for my needs. It's fluid, responsive, and has the features I need to do my job. I definitely prefer the Mac for Excel though just because I'm a faster spreadsheet-er with a mouse and keyboard, and Teams is still kind of a dog at this point but it does get the job done and at least they finally got it on AS. I like that they continually update throughout the year, and their update process seems to have gotten faster and better over time. In general I'm pleased with their software for both mobile and Mac.

Where I run into trouble is with OneDrive. In the past it's been pretty reliable for me, but lately it's been erasing work, saving old versions of things over new versions, etc. I don't know if my company screwed something up with my permissions or if OneDrive just generally sucks now, but I've been forced to start only using it in Safari and not Finder.

 

[hch720]

Office works great on a 14 M1 base model.

It is the only option, really. Apple's "iWork" is a joke. Google drive is nice for collaboration.

 

[Surf760]

Most of the differences only exist in Excel and only Excel power users will notice them. Otherwise while the location of tools may be different, they're generally all there. I run a law firm off MS Office and Adobe Acrobat Pro, which is to say I basically live in those applications every day - I've run into practically 0 issues over a substantial number of years.

 

[PsykX]

My office is a Mac office but I'm limited to a dinky Dell laptop that chokes on its own boot up process because I need PowerQuery and PowerBI for my job. PowerBI looks to me to be an Electron app (or whatever they call it now). If they'd just port it, I'd scream for a Mac without blinking.

It's now WebView 2, but I've gotta say, it's clearly not native and it shows. It's a bit slow yes. Almost any app, I can tell if it's native or not.

 

[Shirasaki]

I find the macOS version of office is inferior to that of windows. I find on the Mac Word and Excel display text so small that you have to increase the magnification. General usage and performance is such that I find Office to be much more responsive on PCs

OneDrive has given me so much headaches on, that I don't even have that installed.

I used to prefer Office on Windows, but Microsoft has tuned it up enough in recent years I actually prefer the Mac one now. Agree about the text size, though -- first thing I do is zoom in!

And it gets worse. The zoom level is saved across, meaning on windows, texts are WAY TOO ****** BIG. I have to zoom out again, only to make texts unreadable on Mac. Multiple times I open an excel file that was opened on mac before and greeted with humongous characters all of a sudden. It’s not even funny.

 

[Isengardtom]

It is *slightly* inferior to Windows, but I've used it for years with absolutely no trouble. Then again, I do basic stuff.

You can always go the Parallels + Windows 11 + Windows versions of Office if you desire. You have the extra cost of Windows itself and Parallels of course, but it runs buttery smooth on the Mx processors.

This is what I do. I just use Parallels with Windows 11 on my M1 iMac
Only thing that iMac has is an upgraded 16GB Ram. Works as smooth if not smoother than on my new Surface laptop.

these days I often find myself working in the web environment via SharePoint anyways

Apps work just fine on MacOS directly but excel for example is limited. If you need something like PowerPivot, you’ll need Windows.

 

[jchap]

Just to clarify: Alt-key commands don't exist on Mac Excel, they are not supported -- You are talking about basic shortcuts.

ALT+key combinations in terms of activating menu commands don't exist at all on the Mac. That has always been a Windows conception.

Actually, with the advent of the Ribbon in MS Office, the ALT commands even in Windows work in a very different way than they used to.

Either way, you have to learn the Ribbon shortcuts, or create your own keyboard shortcuts. macOS lets you do that for the menu commands (and the macOS version of MS Office is superior in that regard, since you get both the ribbon and the menubar commands—take your pick according to what's useful). If that's not enough, you can customize keyboard shortcuts in Word or Excel for Mac. PowerPoint doesn't seem to offer customizable shortcuts on the Mac as of May 2023, so you have to use the macOS system prefs to control menubar commands, or else use a third-party app like Keysmith.

 

[jchap]

And it gets worse. The zoom level is saved across, meaning on windows, texts are WAY TOO ****** BIG. I have to zoom out again, only to make texts unreadable on Mac. Multiple times I open an excel file that was opened on mac before and greeted with humongous characters all of a sudden. It’s not even funny.

I think this is because Windows and macOS handle scaling and screen resolutions differently. Office does not compensate for those differences across OS platforms, apparently.

It might be interesting to test this out, by setting your screen display scaling to 100% at the OS system settings level on a Mac and a Windows PC respectively, and then open the same document on both platforms.

 

[Tec_Amigo]

I use it but very minimal, I use my Windows laptop a lot more for this. On the Mac I use Numbers and pages, even though they are different than Microsoft it still the job down for what I want to use.

 

[The point and shoot pro]

The only thing I use that is Microsoft on my Mac is Visual Studio Code.
View attachment 2199759
And I barely even use it, It is just a nice IDE if I want to save some Swift or Lua code.

Thats great. However, I am vested into Microsoft's applications for my family so I need to use them.

 

[maflynn]

This provides a nice summary Microsoft Office Differences Between Mac and PC

In my opinion, the Mac version looks a little rougher around the edges than the more streamlined look on the PC. Outside of the interface differences, you will notice that Mac Office doesn’t have all of the apps that the PC version has. And, some of the visual basic functions are missing in Mac. Mac does have a better layout look for more of the publishing aspects. Only Word for PC has that feature. The other apps do not have it.

Overall, when I need to do more expert level tasks in Office, I would use the PC version. If you do need to run both versions, you can do so in Mac using the Parallels Desktop for Mac and a subscription to Office 365.

Here's a long MR thread on the topic: MS Office on M1 Mac vs. MS Office on Intel Windows PCs

I think most of what I see is that its not bad, but the windows version is a better, maybe not a by a lot, maybe the peculiarities that are evident in the Mac version are not bothersome, maybe they are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Its best to test drive and see of yourself

 

[neuropsychguy]

I use Office suite (mainly excel, word and PP), Outlook, OneDrive, OneNote, Remote Desktop and Teams.

All work good for me, I have historically had some pretty bad issues with OneDrive (both on intel mac and M1) but nowadays it seems to work properly.

Only one I really can complain about is Teams. Teams has never been a good application no matter if it was on intel or M-series mac nor on Windows PC. So my Teams issues are more down to it being junk software.

I mostly agree. Teams isn’t great software but I use it regularly and can say it works better on Macs than computers running Windows. At least I can use my enterprise account on my Mac. On Windows noting I’ve done has enabled me to run my enterprise account on my personal computer.

I even reinstalled Windows and that didn’t fix it. This means in my experience, in some cases Office software works better on a Mac.

 

[Anaxarxes]

I am currently using two dell pcs that I enjoy, but I am very interested in MacOS for my Pc use. Who here is using MS software like office 365, onedrive, onenote etc on their macbook/mac? How do you find the integration?

It's far better than Windows. I use O365, OneDrive, Teams etc for my company that is 95% PC and only few have Macs.

I was skeptical until I got my M1 MBA, but after 1 year of use, I will never ever go back to Windows, even for Excel, Outlook etc which I thought were superior in PC.

FYI - my work on Excel is light, not using macros or complex excel files. I'm sure for some VBA scripts WIndows might perform better, but for majority of the tasks MS suite (including Teams) is as good if not better on macOS

 

[Philip Turner]

I use OneNote on my iPad and often view the notes on my Mac.

 

[ShiftHappens]

I use Office suite (mainly excel, word and PP), Outlook, OneDrive, OneNote, Remote Desktop and Teams.

All work good for me, I have historically had some pretty bad issues with OneDrive (both on intel mac and M1) but nowadays it seems to work properly.

Only one I really can complain about is Teams. Teams has never been a good application no matter if it was on intel or M-series mac nor on Windows PC. So my Teams issues are more down to it being junk software.

I think this sums it up quite well! Only addition might be that Remote Desktop has had a lot of issues in the past, but is much more stable nowadays...

 

[nothingtoseehere]

I use Office suite (mainly excel, word and PP), Outlook, OneDrive, OneNote, Remote Desktop and Teams.

All work good for me, I have historically had some pretty bad issues with OneDrive (both on intel mac and M1) but nowadays it seems to work properly.

Only one I really can complain about is Teams. Teams has never been a good application no matter if it was on intel or M-series mac nor on Windows PC. So my Teams issues are more down to it being junk software.

This is nearly exactly my use case, I fully agree.

As I also work on a PC with the same MS 365 plan, I have a direct comparison. Unlike others here, I do not think that the Mac version is inferior.

Important point from @PsykX : Check whether Office for Mac has all the apps you need. If you need Power BI or something on a regular basis, stay with the PC.

 

[MultiFinder17]

Office works wonderfully on my AS Macs, and OneDrive is no worse than it is on any other Mac. OneDrive has never been fantastic, but it really isn't too bad. Except when it has a stroke and needs to be quit and restarted

 

[Tagbert]

I use excel with keyboard navigation on a Mac and really see major differences in capability.

One thing is that some commands have different key combinations.

Some stuff that would be for example ctrl+b on Windows is cmd+b on mac and a different command is bound to ctrl+b on mac (that in turn has a different key-bind in windows).

Also F-key commands you need to either press fn+F-key unless you change the basic setting etc.

With all that said most stuff, that I use, are the same.

CMD vs CTRL is just a basic platform standard that is different between Mac and Windows. For most part any where you would use CTRL in Windows you would use CMD on a Mac. It's not something that Microsoft chose to do differently.