GroupOn Microsoft Key

PennysIntoPounds

Thank you for pointing out potential complications @Vitor
If there are issues that impact my clients at all I'll buy a Microsoft Office package straight away.
I only really use Word so just needed something quickly to be able to write on documents.
Change tracking is occasionally useful so thanks for highlighting that I can't do that on Libre

Thanks for mentioning that @GDB2222, I'll look into it if needed.

Not sure I'd equate being unknowledgable and overwhelmed by tech with purchasing illegal drugs @Exodi but thank you for sharing your views.
I didn't contact Microsoft and wouldn't know how to do so. I was relating what it said on their information page I clicked through to from the pop up box on the Word document.
I can't recall the exact amount paid but it was higher than though nearer to the GroupOn amount you quoted. I had no idea what it was supposed to cost and presumed that like many things it could vary a great deal depending on various factors. Lesson learnt.

Thank you to everyone who has kindly shared their time and knowledge to help.

GDB2222

I had a look at the Groupon website, and it says clearly they are offering a lifetime license. If I were the op, I might sue them. But, really, for only £12 I would more likely decide not to bother. I can’t imagine that Groupon would defend the claim, though. 

outtatune

Use the free online version of Word if you can't justify the cost of buying the one off official licence.

Will do 99% of what even a reasonably advanced user would need from Word, and won't have the compatibility questions of LibreOffice. 

Frozen_up_north

PennysIntoPounds said:

If there are issues that impact my clients at all I'll buy a Microsoft Office package straight away.
I only really use Word so just needed something quickly to be able to write on documents.
Change tracking is occasionally useful so thanks for highlighting that I can't do that on Libre

Before retiring, I worked for an organisation that was obsessed with having everything "Microsoft", it seemed as if the IT people didn't know about anything else. We often received documents in Word and Excel formats from Government departments, and were required to use Microsoft ".doc" and ".xls" ourselves... yet the Cabinet Office mandated that documents from Central Govt departments should be in Open Document Format (ODF), or PDF, which meant any software package should be able to open them and perhaps more importantly, they then would not have embedded script that could be malicious.

While you are free to use any format you like, the official Govt guidance still appears to be to use ODF, which means Libre would be completely compatible. Perhaps you could follow suit and save a few quid?

Vitor

- yet the Cabinet Office mandated that documents from Central Govt departments should be in Open Document Format (ODF),- 

That was back in the day when Francis Maude was in charge and was promoted by the Government Digital Service (GDS).  In practice, all civil servants quietly continued using DOCX, because that’s what worked with their software, partners and archives. The irony is that DOCX itself eventually became an ISO standard, which removed the whole justification for the mandate. The world carried on as before, while the official guidance quietly faded into irrelevance.

sausage_time

LibreOffice is widely used by many government agencies.

https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/who-uses-libreoffice/

https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/04/germanys_northernmost_state_ditches_windows/

Exodi

Vitor said:

In practice, all civil servants quietly continued using DOCX, because that’s what worked with their software, partners and archives. 

Indeed, and it's easy to verify this in practice.

For example, the TR1 form to sell your house is available as .doc (while not .docx, an MS Word format) or .pdf: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/registered-titles-whole-transfer-tr1

Same with a few other documents I checked.

sausage_time said:

LibreOffice is widely used by many government agencies.

https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/who-uses-libreoffice/

https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/04/germanys_northernmost_state_ditches_windows/

While interesting, it's probably most relevant that the national government doesn't use it in practice. Unless the OP's line of work is with overseas government agencies, of course.

unforeseen

Also a lot of the larger companies will only use software where it is possible to have a support contract with the maker

QrizB

unforeseen said:

Also a lot of the larger companies will only use software where it is possible to have a support contract with the maker

Or at least, they think they do.

In practice pretty much all modern IT architectures depend on unmaintained software.

As xkcd put it: