MS Excel and Word (or Office whatever)

Manxman_in_exile

As you may know from previous threads I was forced(!) to buy a new laptop when I spilled a glass of beer over my ten year old Toshiba a few months ago.

The Tosh is completely dead and unresponsive, but on it I had a licensed copy of MS Office Home and Student 2010.  (We also have a second copy on a Samsung notebook, leaving a third licence that has never been used.  Still have all the original paperwork and product key etc).

My wife has also recently bought a new laptop, and we've now reached a point where we really need to get Excel and Word (or equivalents) on our respective laptops (ie two copies - one on each machine).  Up to now we've coped with just using the copy of Office on the Samsung notebook, but it's just too slow and a real PITA to use.

So what's the best way of getting functional spreadsheet and word processing packages on our two laptops, without spending a load of dosh?

1.  First thought is whether it's possible to re-use the 2010 Office version we already have?  That consists of three licences:  one that has never been used; one on the Samsung that we are still using; and one on the Toshiba that is now inaccessible.  Problems are (a) I don't know if it's at all possible; (b) I don't know if MS still support the Office Home and Student Student 2010 version; and (c) I would have to somehow re-use the licence that is currently on the Tosh but which we now can't access.

2.  I thought I had read somewhere that if you had a MS account and had Windows 10, then you could access a free (or low cost?) cut-down version of Excel and Word.  Is this right or have I made it up?  Everything I've explored so far seems to be pointed towards getting you to take out a subscription for the package which I'm pretty reluctant to do unless I absolutely have to.  

3.  Do we just bite the bullet and pay whatever it costs to get MS Office?

4.  Or do we use some free or other low cost spreadsheet and WP package?  (I might be quite happy to do this but I'm not sure how "free" - or is it "open" - packages work.  We both want to keep as minimal a data footprint as possible so we don't want to trade privacy etc for low cost).

Just to clarify - although we both consider it essential to have Excel and Word (or equivalents) on our respective machines, neither of us are going to be heavy users of those packages.  We won't be doing massive number-crunching or data analysis and neither of us is going to be writing our memoirs or going into publishing.

So what do people think is the best way forward?

(PS - Apologies if any of these are really stupid questions, but I'm a confirmed techno-dunce and techno-phobe!)

Prism

The web versions are free. I would try those first before deciding if you need to buy an Office subscription.

grumpycrab

free options - see https://www.techrepublic.com/article/5-free-alternatives-to-microsoft-word/

if you can pay, there are 2 options.  yearly subs e.g. Office family £70 a year

one off purchases e.g. Groupon £24 per license   https://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/microsoft-office-2016-717522863
Wowcher from £20 per license  https://www.wowcher.co.uk/deal/london/17537088/microsoft-office-home-student-2016-19-95?usr_src=search
(wowcher and groupon voucher systems are a little complicated)

OR Office 2010 starter gives free versions of Word and Excel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBKvavVA8g8
I've just insalled on latest Windows10 and it worked... fidly though....

pbartlett

If you don't want anything complicated in Word or Excel get a copy of Office 2007 (eBay).

I have used mine since 2007 and it does everything I want.

Or, as above, use the free alternatives they are pretty good these days.

matelodave

LibreOffice is pretty good - it's free, it's kept up to date and it's compatible with MS Office.

I've been using it for the last five years since my lasy computer turned up it's toes and it does everything I need.

Download it and try it out - it wont cost you anything

KingL2

Libreoffice is free and should be compatible with your MSOffice docs. Supports File extensions Word(.doc, .docx), Excel (.xls, .xlsx). You can check the File extensions of your existing documents by opening any Windows folder and using the menus ('View' menu at the top of the window) and tick the box "File name extensions". All your files will now have a dot followed by three/four letters  at the end.  If your spreadsheets/word documents have one of the four options above, you're good to go.  You can uncheck the box in the menu afterwards.

https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/libreoffice/
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/

neilmcl

Just install the version you currently have.

inspectorperez

As previous posters have commented, Libreoffice is excellent free open source software and is as easy to use as the Microsoft Office suite of programs. Google docs is another alternative which I find excellent particularly if I am working within a Google Drive environement. Both programs are entirely compatible with Microsoft Office files.

Failing that, as grumpycrab has pointed out, Microsoft Office suites can be obtained on Groupon at very much reduced prices for one off license purchases. Microsoft Office 2016 and Microsoft Office 2019 are available for under £50 depending on whether you opt for "Home and Student" or "Professional". The main difference between the two I believe is the inclusion of Microsoft Outlook in the more expensive option.

One other comment, just as an afterthought, do you ever save a Belarc Advisor report of your computer? Reason I ask the question is that the report normally provides details of your license keys which might be useful if you ever need to reinstall software.

I know this from experience when one of my sons wrecked his laptop by spilling a cup of coffee over it. In his case, a new keyboard was part of the solution and his laptop was up and running again in no time following the replacement keyboard shipment arriving from the Far East.

unforeseen

Libreoffice is free and should be partially compatible with your MSOffice docs.

Corrected that for you

prowla

If you intend to share MS Office docs with other people, then you'll save yourself a lot of hassle by using MS Office.

If you need to do similar work (word processing and spreadsheets) and are prepared to accept that other providers' products may behave differently, then Libre/OpenOffice works perfectly fine. There could be some adjustments on 1st use and colours may not be identical, but the equivalent functionality is there and usability is similar. However, if you need to exchange docs with an MS Office user, then those changes will surface again.

AFAIK, existing MS Office licenses should be re-usable; I've certainly done that. I'm not up to date with current, but in the past there may have been an extra step required to confirm online that the license is on a new system and no longer the old one. Since you've got the keys, you could just try installing and see what it says.

Also, if you haven't already done it and you have things on the broken laptop's disk, you could fairly easily take it out of the laptop and put it into an external USB enclosure, which (assuming the disk isn't broken) could then be plugged into one of the new ones and read.

elsien

I’ve transferred office from an old computer to a new one. 

It does have repeated messages that it’s stopping being supported, but still works fine.
I’ve not tried libre, but had the free open office some years ago; I was never entirely happy with it. It did cause too many complications with comparability with other people using word.