Software Advice please

[poppi]

I am on the verge of replacing my 15 year old iMac with the lartest model and I know I will need to upgrade several applications which will no longer work with a new machine, one of which will be µsoft office. I can't decide whether I want to ourchase the personally owned version or the Office 365 annual rental. I would appreciate hearing the pros and cons for each option

Thank you

poppi

 

[MacInWin]

I have MS365, pay montly, not yearly. For $9.99US, ($99.99/year) I get the entire Office suite, plus Outlook and One Note for six machines. All can be open at the same time. Each account gets 1TB of online storage, for a total of 6TB overall. The software is updated every month with the latest release. I can cancel at any time (No contract) and the documents will still be there for me if I want to use one of the MS clones. As of right now I have three of the licenses installed, used to be four. It's still cheaper for me to stick with the 6 user deal than to get two single user deals.

The Single user cost is $69.99/year, $6.99/monty for one license, 1 TB of storage.

Others will undoubtedly chime in about wanting to "own" the software, which is fine, although technically you don't "own" it, you license it for use.

 

[Rod]

If you buy the downloaded package you only pay for it once. I bought MS Office for MacOS (Family) in 2021 for AU$139.00. I don't intend to upgrade it anytime soon.
If I purchase Office 365 I pay the same AU$139.00 every year. So by my reckoning I've already saved AU$278.00.



My wife was still using MS Office 2016 at the time. With the family package we both get to use the 2021 version and given that we primarily only use MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint that is more than enough for our needs.
PS. I do use OneDrive for document storage/sharing.

 

[Jimmysb]

When I was running Windows I had O365 with an annual payment, however I have now moved to a stand alone copy purchased via one of the discount deals as seen on this forum, I bought Office 2021 for about £20.00.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

... µsoft office. I can't decide whether I want to ourchase the personally owned version or the Office 365 annual rental. I would appreciate hearing the pros and cons for each option

The subscription version comes with cloud storage space, a version of Outlook with a few more non-essential features, and a couple of other things, none of which I personally find compelling.

You can get the personal (non-subscription) lifetime version of Microsoft Office for only $30:

Office 2021 Home and Business Lifetime License Key – For MacOS
$30
https://www.joywarp.com/product/office-2021-home-and-business-lifetime-license-key-for-macos/

Review of JoyWarp so that you know that they are legitimate:
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/joywarp.com

However, I VERY HIGHLY recommend that before you pay for Microsoft Office, that you try out:

FreeOffice (free)
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/

FreeOffice is a really slick Office suite extremely similar to Microsoft Office. Excellent file compatibility with Microsoft format files! It may suit your needs perfectly, and you can't beat the price.