I'm self employed - can I use Microsoft Office 365?

Jivesinger

Type_45 wrote: »

As far as Microsoft's rules are concerned, it does rather beg the question why someone would need Microsoft Office for "home use".

Other than for work, or interview, purposes, I cannot think of a time when I sit at home using Excel or Word. Let alone ruddy Powerpoint.

Things have changed since I was in education, but I imagine students will use all of those.

Personally I use Outlook for emails, Excel for personal finance/admin stuff, and occasionally Word if I need to actually write a letter or print my Christmas card labels.
Powerpoint... not so much.

ARandomMiser

It may not be suitable but, also look at Kingsoft WPS. We have found it to be more compatible with MS products than Open/LibreOffice.

I_have_spoken

You sub to Office 365 can be offset as a business expense.

Geodark

Type_45 wrote: »

As far as Microsoft's rules are concerned, it does rather beg the question why someone would need Microsoft Office for "home use".

Other than for work, or interview, purposes, I cannot think of a time when I sit at home using Excel or Word. Let alone ruddy Powerpoint.

Really? I use excel for calculating on my home budget, calculating materials I need to do my garden projects, making Christmas present lists etc, and word gets used a lot of the time as well. My son is in school and uses word, excel and powerpoint on an almost weekly basis.

ThemeOne

Unless your documents are particularly complicated Office Online is probably the way to go.

Type_45

Geodark wrote: »

Really? I use excel for calculating on my home budget, calculating materials I need to do my garden projects, making Christmas present lists etc, and word gets used a lot of the time as well. My son is in school and uses word, excel and powerpoint on an almost weekly basis.

Not used them a jot for personal reasons. My personal finances are all on an email I send myself each month (been doing that for years, and it's a long email at this point, but easy to read, simple, and does the job nicely).

Outside of work I do not use Office at all. Hence this thread: I do not have Office! I use a Chromebook. And I don't even use the Office version of that (which is called Google Drive). It was only when I became self employed recently that I started using the Google Drive version of Excel (which is called Google Sheets).


I forgot about students, to be fair. I imagine they'd use Office all the time. We certainly did not do that when I was a student in the 90s. In fact, I used a type writer! It was electronic, but it was simply a type writer and nothing else.

Type_45

I_have_spoken wrote: »

You sub to Office 365 can be offset as a business expense.

Yes, indeed. And for that reason I do not mind shelling out a bit of money. I'm not trying to cheat anyone and I am above board.

But the £200+ per year business use version seems bit much for my purposes.

agrinnall

Type_45 wrote: »

As far as Microsoft's rules are concerned, it does rather beg the question why someone would need Microsoft Office for "home use".

Other than for work, or interview, purposes, I cannot think of a time when I sit at home using Excel or Word. Let alone ruddy Powerpoint.

Just because you don't do it is irrelevant to the many millions of people who do. I use Word pretty much every day, and Excel most weeks, and even Powerpoint occasionally.

Type_45

agrinnall wrote: »

Just because you don't do it is irrelevant to the many millions of people who do. I use Word pretty much every day, and Excel most weeks, and even Powerpoint occasionally.

Yes, I have learned on this thread that many people do use Office at home. Understood.

So what personal reasons do you have for PowerPoint, may I ask? Presentations to the cat on doing it's business in the middle of the litter tray, rather than over the edge and onto the kitchen floor? Do you give handouts to the cat and family members to read too?

Jivesinger

Type_45 wrote: »

Yes, indeed. And for that reason I do not mind shelling out a bit of money. I'm not trying to cheat anyone and I am above board.

But the £200+ per year business use version seems bit much for my purposes.

I think the 'Home and Business 2016' version is £230 (on Microsoft's site) for a perpetual licence, rather than an amount per year. It doesn't have quite all the components which Office 365 does, but the difference is in things like MS Access which I imagine few people use. Also it won't update itself to the next version after 2016, whereas Office 365 will keep upgrading.

It's also available cheaper from other places - Amazon have it for £170.36 today for instance, for a version direct from Amazon (so it should be legit).