Why do some continue using Microsoft Office on Mac?

[MacDaddyPanda]

What is your opinion of Office on MacOS compared on Office for Windows

I don't have a comprehensive opinion. My use case on my Mac is different than on Windows. Specifically because my work PC is windows. So At work I use the main apps a lot. Outlook, Teams, OneNote, Excel, sometimes Word,occasionally powerpoint. My own personal use I only use on both windows and Mac is mainly for Cloud sync with my iphone. OneNote and Outlook. My Excel use personally is just limited to very basic use. I rarely use Word myself.
But the only technical difference I found annoying was that Any office app launches very slow on MacOS vs on Windows system.

 

[EdwardC]

I don't have a comprehensive opinion. My use case on my Mac is different than on Windows. Specifically because my work PC is windows. So At work I use the main apps a lot. Outlook, Teams, OneNote, Excel, sometimes Word,occasionally powerpoint. My own personal use I only use on both windows and Mac is mainly for Cloud sync with my iphone. OneNote and Outlook. My Excel use personally is just limited to very basic use. I rarely use Word myself.
But the only technical difference I found annoying was that Any office app launches very slow on MacOS vs on Windows system.

On my M2 Pro Mini Word launches in under 1 second my M1 Mini is the same. My HP Z2 workstation with a Xeon W series is almost instant (Win 11 Pro for Workstations). Those times are from start up not previously opened.

 

[MacDaddyPanda]

On my M2 Pro Mini Word launches in under 1 second my M1 Mini is the same. My HP Z2 workstation with a Xeon W series is almost instant.

I didn't count how long it took, but it definitely felt like more than a second. Maybe 2-5 seconds from the time I click the icon. Whereas on Windows it's more instant. 1 sec at most if Windows is doing a bunch of stuff. On Mac It just felt like an eternity for it to start. I do have the base storage option on my MacMini M2. I can't imagine that would impact the NVME Read speed for this app.
Though I haven't seen any reviews testing Real World Application launch speeds. Mostly just synthetic benchmarks getting fastest speed read/writes. Which most work loads don't actually use.

 

[lankox]

On my M2 Pro Mini Word launches in under 1 second my M1 Mini is the same. My HP Z2 workstation with a Xeon W series is almost instant (Win 11 Pro for Workstations). Those times are from start up not previously opened.

Is this Office 365? On several M1 and M2 Max machines I have access to, Office 365 Word takes 5 seconds to start after a machine restart.

 

[MacDaddyPanda]

Is this Office 365? On several M1 and M2 Max machines I have access to, Office 365 Word takes 5 seconds to start after a machine restart.

I just tried launching excel on my MacMiniM2. It took 7 secs to start and be usable.
I do shutdown my Mac when I'm done. So it's fresh boot. If I start any Office app it starts right away after that 1st time.

 

[Tagbert]

Is this Office 365? On several M1 and M2 Max machines I have access to, Office 365 Word takes 5 seconds to start after a machine restart.

It may be that Gatekeeper scans the apps when they are first started after a reboot to check for malware.

Once I open an app on a given day, I typically keep it open because I’m likely to need to use it again. Startup time is just not as important as other aspects of performance.

 

[lankox]

It may be that Gatekeeper scans the apps when they are first started after a reboot to check for malware.

Once I open an app on a given day, I typically keep it open because I’m likely to need to use it again. Startup time is just not as important as other aspects of performance.

So how do we explain those who claim that Office 365 apps open in 1 second after a reboot?

 

[ipaqrat]

Office 2010 also doesn't have the ribbon toolbar IIRC
while it might not look as fancy, i think i'm actually preferring it usability wise

Office for Windows got the Ribbon with version 2007. You can hide the ribbon until you need a control, but there are no menus up there. The last version of Office with menus (instead of the ribbon) was Office XP.

Office for Mac got a Ribbon-like UI in version 2008, which was more windows-like in version 2010, but not feature match until 2016. Mac Office still has a functional menu bar, in addition to the ribbon.

 

[ipaqrat]

This thread has been raging for 2 years and 11 months? Inconceivable!

I've used every version of Apple's "iWork" (Apple doesn't refer to Pages, Numbers and Keynote as iWork anymore.) back thru its introduction on 2005. Plus FileMaker. I'm fully capable of delivering product using "iWork".

I've used every version of Microsoft's "Office" Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Mail/Outlook on Macs (starting when they became available in 1985, 2 years before Windows).

I've used every Windows version of the Office apps, including Access, Visio, Project and Publisher (which was Ventura Publisher before Microsoft bought it). I've even dabbled in Dynamics, even before 1999 when it was Peachtree Acconting.

I've used all MS' abortive apps for personal finance, graphics, audio-visual creation, and web page design (some of which lives on in Sharepoint) on both platforms.

I've used OpenOffice and most of its forks, including natively on Linux.

I've used Apple's Cyberdog and even BeOS. I developed programs with Smart Form, Mac Project and HyperCard. I beta tested OS X.

I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate, dang it!

Not to be prideful - except I can't help it - but I find Apple's Pages/Numbers/Keynote less capable than Microsoft Office for rigorous, professional, collaborative, cross-platform writing. For example, Pages is missing, awkward or unstable with critical pro-level features (real-time clickable text navigation, Tables of figures, Table of contents, Index cross-referencing, concordance files, document version deltas, multi-document consolidation, in-document hyperlinking, digital rights management, digital signing, data fields for forms that can be extracted to a database... There's more.

Furthermore, I find Apple's sidebar UI needlessly dense, fussy and disorganized. I put up with the crazy sidebar in FileMaker Pro, because it's best in class, as far as I'm concerned, but Pages just makes me tired.

I'm not a fan of Microsoft's Ribbon, either, though. I don't know how to improve it with only two dimensions to work with. There is utterly massive potential to work in the third dimension with Apple's Vision Pro. But $4000! Daaaang, I can't affort that! That's, like, almost a whole tank of gas!

 

[adrianlondon]

It may be that Gatekeeper scans the apps when they are first started after a reboot to check for malware.

Once I open an app on a given day, I typically keep it open because I’m likely to need to use it again. Startup time is just not as important as other aspects of performance.

Gatekeeper only runs after the app has changed - either a new install or an upgrade.

Office is just slow to start. Be grateful you don't have an Intel MBA - after a clean boot, Excel took almost 15 seconds to open.

 

[EdwardC]

Is this Office 365? On several M1 and M2 Max machines I have access to, Office 365 Word takes 5 seconds to start after a machine restart.

No, this is Office 2021 for Mac

 

[EdwardC]

So how do we explain those who claim that Office 365 apps open in 1 second after a reboot?

This is not 365, this is a perpetual Office 2021 for Mac license.

 

[EdwardC]

This is after a restart.....

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Are the apple equivelant apps such as numbers, keynote and pages not good or the same as Microsoft office?

No they ain't lmao. Worse UI, lack integration with Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, not to mention Office does a lot of the work in making documents, spreadsheets, and slideshows for me, having measurement guides to keep my projects nice and tidy.

Plus I have a perpetual license for Office 2021 that only costed me $50 so why would I use the iWork Suite? The only benefit the iWork Suite has is the fact you can use an iPhone or Apple Watch as a presentation clicker, but when everyone at work uses Windows...yeah...that ain't very useful lmao.

Even LibreOffice has a better UI and featureset than iWork does. FOSS to the rescue yet again.

 

[throAU]

Are the apple equivelant apps such as numbers, keynote and pages not good or the same as Microsoft office?

Because whilst numbers and pages are cute dinky little apps for personal use, they simply do not have the standard feature set used in the business world by big companies.

For personal use, if you don’t need to interact with other people running office, the Apple apps (especially keynote! keynote is amazing) are good.

But for brute force number crunching, excel is superior in terms of flexibility and compatibility with the rest of the world.

 

[SalisburySam]

Why do some continue to use Office on a Mac?

For me: compatibility, and the occasionally useful esoteric features.

I use Number and Pages almost exclusively. If I’m doing something out of the ordinary, I’ll switch to the Microsoft counterparts given the many extra functions on what can only be called bloatware. Also, if I’m sending to others, Microsoft is the most compatible to other users in the various groups with whom I communicate.

Back in the day I used PowerPoint heavily, really, really heavily. But since retirement, we’ve used it for some quick presentations to the local historic commission and some city council meetings. Could likely do the same in Keynote but for our very infrequent use it isn’t worth learning it.

Still wish Office on the Mac included a Mac equivalent of Access. At least there is ninox, now free on macOS and iOS in single-user local licenses.

 

[lankox]

This is after a restart.....
View attachment 2287463

Thanks for the video. Maybe I should switch to 2021.

 

[370zulu]

Only reason I have been considering switching from Office is the bloat and constant nagging to try new features and new interfaces. It would be nice to have a single switch that allowed the end user to opt out of all of that nonsense.

That said, I like knowing that Microsoft has kept the $99 per year price point for the M365 Family plan and I can provide Office for 5 other Family members. I know that expense is subjective, but this is an expense I am willing to incur. Not everyone who is a part of my subscription uses MacOS, so Apple apps are out of the question for them.

 

[Prof.]

I use Office because that's all we use at work. Having to jump through hoops to make sure Pages, Keynote, etc are compatible with the programs at work is just too annoying.

 

[EdwardC]

Thanks for the video. Maybe I should switch to 2021.

Office 2021 for Mac is $32.97 for a perpetual license through Mashable.

Microsoft Office Home & Business for Mac 2021: Lifetime License | Mashable

<p>Say hello to a lifetime of productivity! Secure all the MS Office 2021 apps with just one smart purchase from a Microsoft-verified partner.</p>

shop.mashable.com

 

[MacBH928]

That said I do like Pages but today as an example Office Home and Office 2021 for Mac is $32.97 for a perpetual license through Mashable. I have purchased 4 licenses over the past year through them with no issues. It's honestly a no brainer to have the gold standard for so little......Ed

Indeed correct. $33 for unlimited license for an app as powerful as Word is a steal, do you get any updates with that?
I didn't know MS still sold license, I thought they went with the "subscription only" trend. I also did not know Mashable had a store.

MS really got the price right for their apps, the offering is too much for too little.

I didn't count how long it took, but it definitely felt like more than a second. Maybe 2-5 seconds from the time I click the icon.

This kind of made me chuckle. Back in the day, you had to double click the app and wait for the behemoth to completely load probaly for minutes.

Once I open an app on a given day, I typically keep it open because I’m likely to need to use it again. Startup time is just not as important as other aspects of performance.

Thats a nice way to do things but in my head the more big apps you open the less RAM you have, the slower the machine works.

This thread has been raging for 2 years and 11 months? Inconceivable!

I've used every version of Apple's "iWork" (Apple doesn't refer to Pages, Numbers and Keynote as iWork anymore.) back thru its introduction on 2005. Plus FileMaker. I'm fully capable of delivering product using "iWork".

I've used every version of Microsoft's "Office" Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Mail/Outlook on Macs (starting when they became available in 1985, 2 years before Windows).

I've used every Windows version of the Office apps, including Access, Visio, Project and Publisher (which was Ventura Publisher before Microsoft bought it). I've even dabbled in Dynamics, even before 1999 when it was Peachtree Acconting.

I've used all MS' abortive apps for personal finance, graphics, audio-visual creation, and web page design (some of which lives on in Sharepoint) on both platforms.

I've used OpenOffice and most of its forks, including natively on Linux.

I've used Apple's Cyberdog and even BeOS. I developed programs with Smart Form, Mac Project and HyperCard. I beta tested OS X.

I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate, dang it!

Not to be prideful - except I can't help it - but I find Apple's Pages/Numbers/Keynote less capable than Microsoft Office for rigorous, professional, collaborative, cross-platform writing. For example, Pages is missing, awkward or unstable with critical pro-level features (real-time clickable text navigation, Tables of figures, Table of contents, Index cross-referencing, concordance files, document version deltas, multi-document consolidation, in-document hyperlinking, digital rights management, digital signing, data fields for forms that can be extracted to a database... There's more.

Furthermore, I find Apple's sidebar UI needlessly dense, fussy and disorganized. I put up with the crazy sidebar in FileMaker Pro, because it's best in class, as far as I'm concerned, but Pages just makes me tired.

I'm not a fan of Microsoft's Ribbon, either, though. I don't know how to improve it with only two dimensions to work with. There is utterly massive potential to work in the third dimension with Apple's Vision Pro. But $4000! Daaaang, I can't affort that! That's, like, almost a whole tank of gas!

decorated user I see. You are correct, MS Office is the more capable app. If you are experienced user you probably can navigate around it like playing a piano, but for novice people like me I had to fight with it to find where things are and how things work. Apple suite is much "normal" user friendly and does about 99% of what a "normal" user needs.

Here is a recent example:

I wanted to insert page number in MS Word (MacOS) in the footer. I navigated the ribbon, found "insert Page Number" button, clicked on the formatting. It was not there. After searching online, it is in : Insert -> AutoText (?!?) -> New , from which you get a long scrollable list of options of which one of them is called "Page X of Y".

 

[MacBH928]

Everyone is talking about Office compatibility with others but no one is talking compatibility with people who do not have an Office license.

Some one sent me a .DOCX document which I did not have Office license/subscription. It opened in other apps but it was a little messed and not as intended in formatting. Not even free web Office opened it with correct formatting. I had to subscribe to Office 365 to get the right formatting.

Its a trap honestly.

Because whilst numbers and pages are cute dinky little apps for personal use, they simply do not have the standard feature set used in the business world by big companies.

For personal use, if you don’t need to interact with other people running office, the Apple apps (especially keynote! keynote is amazing) are good.

But for brute force number crunching, excel is superior in terms of flexibility and compatibility with the rest of the world.

Exactly this. This needs to be pinned. People look down on Apple Suite and so did I. But after using them I found they are easier, more user friendly, does everything you want except... power user features and compatibility with others.

Only reason I have been considering switching from Office is the bloat and constant nagging to try new features and new interfaces. It would be nice to have a single switch that allowed the end user to opt out of all of that nonsense.

I am not sure how much choice you have. I have seen alternatives like Libreoffice, WPS, FreeOffice, OnlyOffice but I am not sure who are the customers of these apps especially that they are not as compatible as Office with other users and MS Office prices is more than reasonable.

 

[throAU]

Exactly this. This needs to be pinned. People look down on Apple Suite and so did I. But after using them I found they are easier, more user friendly, does everything you want except... power user features and compatibility with others.

Excel in particular.

Numbers is great for small single sheet spreadsheet-y things.

Excel is literally the glue that holds large enterprise accounting departments together. So much of the use of excel is dumping something out of some crappy ERP application or in-house reporting system (e.g., CSV file or oBDC connection into SQL server), running a bunch of excel macros, and re-injecting the end result back into the ERP solution because Bob from accounting got the specific calculations out of excel via some formulas and VB macros that he needed to pipe back into the accounts during his lunch break 15 years ago, and paying the ERP vendor to do it inside of the application would have been a 1/2 million dollars and 6 months of project work. Bob’s excel spreadsheet has been critical to the monthly company report ever since.

Your typical enterprise is FULL of that. And few outside of accounts, payroll or IT realise it. Management don’t care, they got their monthly report.


IMHO that’s the reason for Office’s popularity. Word - can take it or leave it. Powerpoint is garbage. Outlook is a dumpster fire. But Excel and Onenote (if you use it) are great applications and excel carries the business world on its shoulders - Word/Outlook/Powerpoint merely come along for the ride.



edit:
and yeah, Keynote in the Apple suite is Apple’s killer app in its segment where Excel is microsoft’s.

I’ve done awesome presentations in keynote with almost zero effort with zero training the first time i played with it - doing anything similar in powerpoint is a nightmare.

The apple apps aren’t bad. But they didn’t save the company 15-20 years ago and become integrated into the business the way Excel did.

 

[ignatius345]

Excel is literally the glue that holds large enterprise accounting departments together. So much of the use of excel is dumping something out of some crappy ERP application or in-house reporting system (e.g., CSV file or oBDC connection into SQL server), running a bunch of excel macros, and re-injecting the end result back into the ERP solution because Bob from accounting got the specific calculations out of excel via some formulas and VB macros that he needed to pipe back into the accounts during his lunch break 15 years ago, and paying the ERP vendor to do it inside of the application would have been a 1/2 million dollars and 6 months of project work. Bob’s excel spreadsheet has been critical to the monthly company report ever since.

Yup. At my last job I tried (unsuccessfully) to get buy-in for using Keynote more because it was so much better than PPT and everyone could see how much better it was. At the end of the day they didn't want to buy more Macs so that was that.

But Excel? It's insane. I sat for a meeting with this numbers/database guy and he was using Excel to query some database and frankly I was lost. Numbers is great for individuals or even small all-Mac teams (like my current job). But it's not an enterprise solution and it's not trying to be.

 

[drrich2]

Guess everyone shares their personal experience.

I use Apple's Mail and Calendar because they're on there anyway, simple, work and I don't need Outlook. I've used Outlook in the past and way okay with it; just don't need it.

I very rarely need presentation software, and I've used PowerPoint in the past. If I prepared a presentation and needed to run it on someone else's system for some reason, odds are it'd be a PC running PowerPoint. I didn't find anything so wrong with PowerPoint for rare use that I'd have reason to checkout Keynote.

The only time I use a spreadsheet is to open a spreadsheet file, and those seem to nearly all be in Excel.

I use Word because it's more cross platform (Mac + Windows), I've used it for decades, it's the file format standard and I'm okay with it. Learning a whole new niche. ap. with a different file format for a small market share system when I don't need to accomplish word processing beyond what already works...why?

Word is routinely encountered in workplaces, on other's computers and so forth, so familiarity with it is worth cultivating.

MS Office for Mac can be had pretty cheaply. I only have Excel and PowerPoint because I bought Word by way of Office for Mac.

So in a nutshell, I don't need to upscale Apple ap.s. For personal e-mail and calendar use, yeah, the Apple ap.s are fine for me. I use Photos for most of my photo needs, but I've got PhotoShop Elements for a couple of added features I like (which perhaps the latest Photos could do? I get set in my ways).

So since encountering, learning and using Word and often other MS app.s with a partially shared and thus familiar interface is a near-given, and they are near ubiquitous on personal computers, the question isn't why people use them, it's why some use Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Apparently the answers are good enough for minority, but a minority it remains.