Microsoft Office 365..Help Please

The_stingemeister

So I'm looking at buying a new laptop and have decided which make and model I want. But I'm thoroughly confused about whether to purchase Microsoft Office or not, and what are the benefits of buying as a package with the laptop or getting it separately. I do know all about Libre Office and do have it. Yes its good, but with stuff to do with work I'd like to familarise myself with Office. And just saves all the faffing about as most correspondence is via Microsoft Office.

Once purchased is that a one-off buy? Can you let a friend download it on their computer?

I've heard things like: it has just a 1 year licence? To hell with paying each year! PC World offering 365 Home Premium for £59 with laptop. Whats the difference between Office 365 Home Premium and Home & Student 2013?

System

See http://www.microsoft.com/OEM/en-gb/licensing/productlicensing/Pages/office-2013-licensing-packaging.aspx#fbid=oXmxZhA0R8U

Office 365 Home premium is a one year licence for up to 5 PCs

Office 2013 H&S is a one off licence for one PC - no time limit.

colin79666

Office 365 is a one year license and you can install it on up to 5 PCs or Macs plus your iPads if you have any. All upgrades are included so you always have the latest version. Right now it includes the 2013 versions for PC and 2011 for Mac. You are free to move licenses about any time and you can even install it on the fly if you are a friends and they don't already have it although it is supposed to be shared among a household only. 365 also includes some OneDrive storage and Skype minutes.

Home and Student is like the old way of buying it, you pay once (usually over £100) and you can install it on one computer, no renewal unless you want to upgrade to a newer version at some point.

It depends on how you want to roll really, if you have several machines you wish to use office on then 365 makes sense. If you only have 1 or 2 then you are probably better off just buying a boxed copy.

Now just one thing to pick up on, you say it is to look at work stuff. Technically 365 Home and the stand alone home versions are just that - for home use. To use it for work you technically need to be using Business or Professional versions.

I've got 365 and am very happy with it. Got it installed on a desktop, laptop, Mac and two iPads.

macman

Why does using Libre Office involve 'faffing about'? Once you have set the filesave defaults to the MIcrosoft ones (.docx and .xlsx), then it will save and open MS Office documents just the same.
Macros can be a problem, but for more than 90% of users it will do the job.
PS: don't buy your hardware or your software from PCW or any DSG company.

fenlander_uk

If you need any MS Office components other than Word and Excel, go ahead and buy it. If you want to learn the industry standard office suite, go ahead and buy it. If you only need Word and Excel and if cost is an issue, try Kingsoft Office 2013 Free - it has better compatibility than LibreOffice and is nicer to work with.

In a former life I was what might be termed a 'Word power user'. After leaving the job, it took me 5 years to realise that I didn't need MS Office any longer. I still have Office 2007 on my laptop, but use Kingsoft Office in preference. I could never get enthusiastic about LibreOffice, for some reason.

securityguy

It's often possible to buy Office for buttons via your university or your employer. I don't use Office (preferring Pages, Numbers, Keynote and of course LaTeX), but as it's always handy to have lying around for visitors or awkward collaborators, I got Office for Mac via the university for 12 pounds. Had I been getting the PC version it would have been one of the packagings that includes Access.

One of our local schools is advertising that you can have it free if you're a pupil or parent. That's fairly common.

There's also "Software for Students" if you qualify.