MS Office for home use

theGrinch

I am looking for a copy for my laptop to include word and excel. I have seen some offers on Amazon, but I thought I would ask for recommends of what and where to buy a copy for home use.

Browntoa

Use open office , it's free and fully compatible with Microsoft office

aerostar

http://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-free-office-software

esuhl

Browntoa wrote: »

Use open office , it's free and fully compatible with Microsoft office

Sadly, it's NOT fully compatible with MS Office.

That doesn't mean it might be okay if you have very basic requirements and don't mind the compatibility issues.

Neil49

esuhl wrote: »

Sadly, it's NOT fully compatible with MS Office.

That doesn't mean it might be okay if you have very basic requirements and don't mind the compatibility issues.

I suggest that you try the free ones suggested by Aerostar and see if they work for you.

I've used Libre Office for years and never had any compatibility issues with Word/Excel etc. All your work can be saved as docx etc by default if you change the settings.

If you experience problems then that's the time to start spending some cash.

System

LibreOffice, OpenOffice and others work fine for the usual home stuff but be aware that they can have formatting and layout issues opening documents created in MS Office and if you're someone who has spreadsheets done in Excel that run macros etc then you will need to check them very carefully as Calc doesn't come remotely close to supporting the full range of Excel macros.

elsien

Had mine off eBay - keep an eye out and there are some cheaper deals than Amazon.

theGrinch

I have been using WPS and Libre for the last 4-weeks and for one reason or another they just dont work as well for me as say Excel.

Probably because I am familiar with Excel over the years.

Undervalued

Browntoa wrote: »

Use open office , it's free and fully compatible with Microsoft office

No, it really isn't I'm afraid!

It is fine stand alone for many applications but it is far from "fully compatible" with MS Office for anything but the most basic requirements.

EdwardB

theGrinch wrote: »

I am looking for a copy for my laptop to include word and excel. I have seen some offers on Amazon, but I thought I would ask for recommends of what and where to buy a copy for home use.

Microsoft is moving to a rental model with Office 365 because nobody was going to keep paying to upgrade for features they did not use. It is called Office 365 because you have to pay for it 365 days of the year!!

If you have a student in the house you can ask them to get you a cheaper legal licence.

I think the OpenOffice etc will suit most people's needs if not you can usually find an offer for a free year of Office 365. You pays your money and takes your choice or not.

To be honest the pricing is not terrible, it works out around the same as buying Office every 5 years, the benefit for Microsoft is that everyone keeps paying.

Now if you want a free version of Office you can have it. Go create yourself a hotmail account (or whatever they are calling it these days.

It is a bona fide version of MS Office

It is provided by Microsoft

It is a slow as a pig but it is free

Get it here

https://products.office.com/en-gb/office-online/documents-spreadsheets-presentations-office-online

bluesnake

even some sheets in excel in windows will not work on excel on macs.

Then not all windows sheets work on other windows versions.

Libre office and open office have all worked well - for my own sheets. However for things like on the site below, the sheets are just to complex for libre and open office
http://www.locostfireblade.co.uk/spreadsheet/Index.html

This explains what the above sheet does https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1157173