Users can also purchase a subscription for Office 365 from within the apps, so they can get up and running instantly.

Office 365 Is It Worth It Mac Users From

Apple and Microsoft have worked together to bring great Office productivity to Mac users from the very beginning.

Now, with Office 365 on the Mac App Store, its easier than ever to get the latest and best version of Office 365 for Mac, iPad and iPhone.

We have worked closely with Apple to provide Mac users with the very best productivity experience one that offers everything they know and love about Office through an experience uniquely designed for the Mac.

With Office 365 on the Mac App Store, these apps can now be easily distributed to employees using Apple Business Manager, a central dashboard where IT can deploy devices, apps and licenses.

Now IT can quickly enable employees to get to work with their favorite Office tools across Mac, iPad and iPhone, with great new features designed specifically for Apple devices.

Newly redesigned this past year, the Mac App Store features a new look and rich editorial content for a more enjoyable experience when finding great, new apps for the Mac.

Like the iOS App Store, the new Mac App Store celebrates apps, games, businesses and developers with an all-new Discover tab featuring compelling stories, in-depth interviews, helpful tips, collections of must-have apps and more.

Users can also explore new Create, Work, Play and Develop tabs to find the perfect app for a specific project or purpose from music, video and photography apps to business utilities and games.

Cheaper versions of Office are locked to the PC on which they were originally installed.

As a writer, I have a very large number of Word files, but with Microsoft moving to an annual subscription model, the cost of remaining with Word is looking prohibitive.

In fact, you can already use some Microsoft Office programs online, including Word, without paying Microsoft a penny.

Office 365 Is It Worth It Free Online Storage

All you have to do is create a Microsoft Account using any working email address it doesnt have to be a Microsoft email address and you can use online versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint with free online storage in OneDrive.

The main difference is that Microsofts programs are better, except for multiuser simultaneous editing.

Microsofts free suite also includes OneNote, Skype, Calendar, People, Tasks, Photos, Sway, Flow and Forms.

I expect this list will continue to grow in the future.

So, if you want to use Word, you have three choices: the online version (free), the desktop program (one-off payment), and Office 365 (annual subscription).

Why use Word Word is powerful and flexible, but you pay for that utility.

The best is that you like using it, because of its power, rich feature list, ease of use or whatever.

The second reason is that you need it to read old files, which is one of your problems.

This depends on the complexity of your files.

If your documents include multiple columns, embedded images, custom fonts, footnotes and similar features, you can more or less forget about using anything else.

But if your documents are simple text files, then a lot of programs will load them.

I tried to avoid this problem by saving all my files in Microsofts.rtf (rich text) file format, which almost any word processor can read.

Being text based, its hopeless for storing images, but its perfect for texts with simple formatting.

But I found I still needed Word to compare files, and to cope with the publishing industrys use of styles, comments and track changes.

This isnt going to change in a hurry because Microsoft Office is also a platform with hundreds of add-ons and plug-ins, its supported by thousands of books, video tutorials, websites and consultants, and its what most office workers already know how to use.

And when time is money, the cost of sorting out incompatibilities and usability issues is far higher than the cost of Office.

If youre paying staff, say, 20,000 to 60,000 a year, and cant afford 100 a year for Office 365 less for a boxed version then you have bigger problems.

Decide where you are on the spectrum from I like it to cant live without it.

If you are not a business, you can certainly live without it or use the free online version.

But even if you switch to a free alternative, youll spend time learning a new interface and handling your old documents.

Boxed Office The traditional advantages of buying boxed copies of Office were that you could use it on two PCs (a desktop and a laptop, but not at the same time) and that you could transfer it to a new PC.

Boxed copies have more or less disappeared, but if you own one, you need to keep the code marked on the box to reinstall it.

If you lose the activation code, you cant get a new one without giving Microsoft proof of purchase.

Office 365 For Mac Is It Worth It