El Capitan and Office

[yogi]

When you purchase Office, there a few options:

- Office 365, which is an annual subscription (in Home, Personal and University editions)
- Office Home & Student, which is an individual one-time purchase for 1 computer (without Outlook)

With both, you get Microsoft Office 2016, which is the latest version of Office and by far better than Office 2011 for Mac. The only downside is the lack of Office Communicator, which was bundled with Office 2011. However, there is a Skype for Business preview available as of this week (www.skypepreview.com)

So my suggestion would be to go with a Office 365 Home subscription, and stay up to date from here on out. If you dislike subscriptions, get the one-time purchase, if you don't need Outlook.

Also consider that you get some OneDrive storage and Skype minutes with each subscription, and can use the license on up to 5 computers as well as iPads and iPhones.

 

[Ember1205]

Office Home & Business is an option as well and includes Outlook.

I will never, EVER, understand the concept of SaaS for home use. O365 for home use seems significantly over-the-top in terms of what you pay versus what you get. Home users seldom need to stay on the bleeding edge of capability with their Office suite. And, my $100 purchase of Office 2016 Home/Student will last the lifetime of this iMac.

Another option for some folks is to take advantage of the Microsoft Home User Program if their employer is part of the program. For $10, I can have one instance of the latest version of Office that I can download and use on my home machine (my employer is part of the program). You MIGHT be able to tell if yours participates by going to www.microsofthup.com

 

[yogi]

Office Home & Business is an option as well and includes Outlook.

I will never, EVER, understand the concept of SaaS for home use.

Yes, I couldn't find that option but it's out there. And I fully agree with you, however I have found it useful when dealing with families - I can easily provide office to my entire family without fuss, and personally chose the subscription as the upfront cost is lower - obviously, rationally, the more expensive one-time license makes more sense, but requires a higher initial capital investment.

Which, by the way, is the case with many subscription based software services.