Microsoft Office - need advice

[poppi]

Hello

I am finally biting the bullet and upgrading my O/S from 10.6 to 10.11 which makes my antique Office 2004 inoperable so I have been looking at purchasing a compatible version of office. I am looking at Office 2011, 2016, and 365 and have read many very varying reviews of all 3.

2011 - Reportedly cheaper but MAYBE will not be supported in the long term.

206 - More costly. Many reviews say it is not as good as 2011. Is that true?

365 - A"lease" program. Reportedly provides "free" upgrades as revisions occur but does have a monthly cost and requires a Microsoft account. I am not wild about upgrades - just means more to learn.

I would appreciate comments on your experience with any or all of these options.

Thank you

poppi

 

[chscag]

My advice: Go for one of the free suites instead. OpenOffice, Libre Office, both support Microsoft Office documents and can read - write - and save to those formats. Also there is the free Apple apps: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

To answer you question above... Office 2011 would be my choice as long as you're not going to upgrade past macOS 10.13.X. Apps that are 32 bit will not be supported in any new version of macOS and Office 2011 is 32 bit.

Office 2016 is 64 bit but is a bloated suite taking up 3 to 4 times the hard drive space of Office 2011 (depending on which apps you use). Office 365 is by subscription only but may be a better choice than the stand alone Office 2016. The Microsoft account is free and along with it you receive cloud space to store backups, documents, and so forth.

 

[MacInWin]

Beware that Office 2011 is a 32 bit application and Apple will soon abandon 32 Bit applications (according to pundits). You can check this by opening About This Mac and get a System report, then going to the Software/Applications report. One column will show whether the app is 32 bit or 64 bit. Office 2011 is reported as 32 bit on my system, Office365 is 64 bit. I have Office 365 and pay $7/month. The updates are free, come whenever MS releases them. I've tried the free simulations Charlie talked about and was not happy with any of them. It's a personal preference, but given that I exchange Office document with other Office users, compatibility is important.

 

[chscag]

Note: As stated above, as long as you don't upgrade macOS past High Sierra, Office 2011 will continue to function since 32 bit apps still work in High Sierra including iDVD, iWeb which are Apple apps. Only if you upgrade past High Sierra, will 32 bit apps no longer function.

Having said all that, finding a copy of Office 2011 that's genuine and not expensive may be difficult. If you must have Office because of compatibility, then I recommend Office 2016 Home and Student edition which can be purchased for around $100 or less. Lots of good discounts on the web. Just be sure to purchase from somewhere that sells genuine Office. (Amazon, Best Buy, Office Depot, Staples, NewEgg, and many more.)

 

[Sawday]

Open Office, Libre Office and Apple's Pages etc are fine if you use them as standalone (ie your own use only) or only share documents that are plain text with minimal formatting. From my own experience sharing labels, documents with logos or images embedded or that include tables is fraught with problems.

 

[pine man]

I use the Office 365 subscription as it is always up to date and comes with 1TB of cloud storage.

 

[SleeperSS]

I have MS Office that I no longer use since upgrading to Office 2016. If 2011 is what you want to use, you're welcome to this copy. It is straight from MS. We get $10 deals thru work every so often so I upgrade when it's offered.

 

[Dogbreath]

I have access to the $10 deal through work also. Fantastic deal. I was about to buy MS Office Mac 2016 this week. I searched online and MS Office 2019 for Mac and Windows will be released Q3 2018....just an FYI.

Brent

 

[chscag]

I searched online and MS Office 2019 for Mac and Windows will be released Q3 2018....just an FYI.

If you can believe anything from MS. In the past, they have not exactly lived up to their promises. LOL.

But yes, I have heard the same thing and will it be by subscription only? What have you heard?

 

[Rod]

I have Office for Mac OS 2016, it's a little more than $100.00 in Australia but I think Office 365 is better value if you have good online access. Unfortunately I do not always have reliable access so the package for me. At AU $69.00 per year for Personal it's pretty good and if you need it for any form of employment it's tax deductible.

 

[poppi]

UPDATE- I will soon be retrieving my iMac from the shop and it will be upgraded from O/S 10.6.8 to El Capitan 10.11. This will require that I update my Microsoft Office (presently Office 2004 for Mac) as it will no longer work with El Capitan. I am looking to buy Office 2011. My question - will the countless excel files I have created in Office 2004 work in Office 2011? I ask because I have been trying to open those files from a flash drive in Office 2016 on a windows PC and they will not open. If not compatible what do,I need to do to recover mthos eExcel files?

Thank you

poppi

 

[chscag]

My question - will the countless excel files I have created in Office 2004 work in Office 2011? I ask because I have been trying to open those files from a flash drive in Office 2016 on a windows PC and they will not open. If not compatible what do,I need to do to recover mthos eExcel files?

As I stated to you above, unless you can find a genuine MS Office 2011 version that will activate and is not expensive, you may be better off going with the free Apple suite: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

To answer your question regarding the Excel files that you created in Office 2004, they should open in compatibility mode in Office 2011 and Office 2016. They should also likewise open in the PC version of Excel. You should give the Apple suite a try... Numbers should be able to open those Excel files.

If your old Excel files are damaged in some way, they may not open in any compatible suite. One of the problems when you get so far behind in everything - macOS and Office, that nothing may no longer work right. Which is why we harp on folks to stay up to date.

 

[poppi]

As I stated to you above, unless you can find a genuine MS Office 2011 version that will activate and is not expensive, you may be better off going with the free Apple suite: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

Not sure, what you mean by "genuine Office 2011". I see multiple sites offering it for sale. Is there a danger that they are bogus?

I will look into the Apple suite. Is that accessible on line? Free sounds good if there are no complications. I am not a computer wizard.

To answer your question regarding the Excel files that you created in Office 2004, they should open in compatibility mode in Office 2011 and Office 2016. They should also likewise open in the PC version of Excel. You should give the Apple suite a try... Numbers should be able to open those Excel files.

I have not yet upgraded my Mac O/S, it is still in the shop trying to solve a kernel panic issue. When I do get it back with El Capitan loaded I will need to upgrade either Office or Apple Suite.

If your old Excel files are damaged in some way, they may not open in any compatible suite. One of the problems when you get so far behind in everything - macOS and Office, that nothing may no longer work right. Which is why we harp on folks to stay up to date.

No indication that my old files are damaged. They have always opened in the old Office 2004 but won't know until I get back in action.

Thanks for all the advice. I appreciate it

poppi

 

[pm-r]

No indication that my old files are damaged. They have always opened in the old Office 2004 but won't know until I get back in action.

And I'd suggest that you keep a separate bootable clone of all your SL OS X, applications and data files for "just in case" situations if nothing else. At least you know they all worked and doing so keeps them that way.




- Patrick
======

 

[poppi]

Pardon my ignorance butmhow doI create a bootable clone? I have the files on a flash drive. Will that suffice?

Thank you

poppi

 

[pm-r]

Pardon my ignorance butmhow doI create a bootable clone? I have the files on a flash drive. Will that suffice?

Thank you
poppi

To make it easy to use, bootable and useable the two main choices are:
Carbon Copy Cloner
https://bombich.com
or
SuperDuper
https://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

Both are commercial for continual use. Either can be used uncrippled and in free mode for a specific time.




- Patrick
======