The main difference is that Microsoft’s programs are better, except for multiuser simultaneous editing.Microsoft’s free suite also includes OneNote, Skype, Calendar, People, Tasks, Photos, Sway, Flow and Forms. This is exactly the same as Google’s online suite. All you have to do is create a Microsoft Account using any working email address – it doesn’t have to be a Microsoft email address – and you can use online versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint with free online storage in OneDrive. In fact, you can already use some Microsoft Office programs online, including Word, without paying Microsoft a penny.The best is that you like using it, because of its power, rich feature list, ease of use or whatever. Photograph: MicrosoftThere are many reasons for using Word. Why use Word?Word is powerful and flexible, but you pay for that utility. Office 365 includes online, desktop, tablet and smartphone versions for both PCs and Macs, Android and Apple’s iOS.
Rtf (rich text) file format, which almost any word processor can read. But if your documents are simple text files, then a lot of programs will load them.I tried to avoid this problem by saving all my files in Microsoft’s. If your documents include multiple columns, embedded images, custom fonts, footnotes and similar features, you can more or less forget about using anything else. This depends on the complexity of your files. Boxed OfficeThe traditional advantages of buying boxed copies of Office were that you could use it on two PCs (a desktop and a laptop, but not at the same time) and that you could transfer it to a new PC. But even if you switch to a free alternative, you’ll spend time learning a new interface and handling your old documents. If you are not a business, you can certainly live without it or use the free online version. If you’re paying staff, say, £20,000 to £60,000 a year, and can’t afford £100 a year for Office 365 – less for a boxed version – then you have bigger problems.Decide where you are on the spectrum from “I like it” to “can’t live without it”. This applies in spades to files that use VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and macros, and to Excel spreadsheets where errors can have career-ending financial consequences.This isn’t going to change in a hurry because Microsoft Office is also a platform with hundreds of add-ons and plug-ins, it’s supported by thousands of books, video tutorials, websites and consultants, and it’s what most office workers already know how to use.And when time is money, the cost of sorting out incompatibilities and usability issues is far higher than the cost of Office. But I found I still needed Word to compare files, and to cope with the publishing industry’s use of styles, comments and “ track changes”.The third reason is that we live in a world where Microsoft Office is the de facto standard for business documents, and you absolutely have to be able to read them accurately. Office 365 Vs Office Home And Student Full 10 YearsI suspect Microsoft will support it until 14 October 2025, which is the end of support date for Office 2016, and that Office 2022 (yes, there will be one) will only get five years.A further complication is that Microsoft only supports the last three versions of MacOS.Office Home & Student 2019 looks like a bargain at £119.99 or less, but that’s a single-installation version. That means you’re unlikely to get the full 10 years we used to get by moving Office to new PCs, and perhaps explains Microsoft’s attempts to reduce its 10-year support lifecycle.In fact, Microsoft has only announced mainstream support for Office Home & Student 2019 for the five years up to 10 October 2023, with extended support marked “Not Applicable”. If you lose the activation code, you can’t get a new one without giving Microsoft proof of purchase.Cheaper versions of Office are locked to the PC on which they were originally installed. If you lose the DVDs, you can download the software. The Office 2019 versions are fixed. First, the 365 programs have more and better features, because they are continuously updated. There’s no need to buy three or more single-machine copies to install them on a desktop, laptop, 2-in-1 tablet and so on.Also, Microsoft claims that Office 365 is better than Office 2019. If you can share the cost, it’s terrific value, because each user can install the full Office on multiple PCs and Macs. For a family of four, it’s only £20 per year each. Everyone gets their own terabyte of storage, up to 6TB in all. Where are endnotes located in microsoft word for mac 2011If you only write plain texts, you should be fine. You will need to load and “save as” a few of your most complex documents to see how much of the formatting survives. As mentioned, the success rate generally depends on the Word features you use. Docx formats, and some can also write or export them. Alternatives to WordLots of programs claim they can read Microsoft Word. It’s not clear how useful most of these are to solitary users, apart from instant translation. Of course, nothing stops you from using both.I was also going to suggest WPS Office, the suite owned by China’s Kingsoft, but it only has Windows, Linux, Android and iOS versions, not MacOS. It has a free version and a subscription version (£49.90 a year), but you can buy the full SoftMaker Office Professional 2018 for Mac, Windows or Linux for £89.99, after a 30-day free trial.I don’t regard Google Docs as an alternative because it’s online only, and you’d mostly be better off using the free version of Word online. LibreOffice is both open source and free, so it will only cost you the time needed to try it.The less-well-known German suite SoftMaker Office has a ribbon interface and uses Microsoft Office file formats by default, without conversion. Otherwise, your best bet is LibreOffice 6.2.2, which now has its own optional ribbon interface. All our journalism is independent and is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative.By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that third-party cookies will be set. Users who like it could consider a “lifetime” purchase for $79.99 (individuals) or $119.99 (businesses), but try SoftMaker first.Have you got a question? Email it to article contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through andMakes a purchase. Unfortunately, the free version includes advertising, which I found unbearable, and the Premium version isn’t worth $29.99 a year.
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