Author Topic: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?  (Read 1552 times)

foghorn

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I will be soon looking to replace my 9 year old iMac with a new iMAC.

I have MS Office on the current machine (Office for iMac 2011 - no longer supported or updated).  When getting a new computer, I will want to/need to get an upgraded version of MS Office.  I basically have two choices:


1.)  The one time purchase, that will get updates for some period of time (as long as MS wants to, I guess).

2.)  Subscribe to Office 365 and pay the yearly fee with regular upgrades - as well One Drive storage.


Has anyone here been through this thought process lately?  Any words of advice on what you did and why? 

Thanks in advance for any guidance.




Michael in ABQ

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2020, 11:04:01 AM »
For some things software as a service makes sense. I do hate how things like Office and Adobe Acrobat have switched to that business mode though. So now instead of paying $100 one time you can pay $500 over the next 5-6 years.

I've been able to take advantage of the Microsoft program where they let you purchase the full office suite for $10 for home use if you work for certain businesses - or in my case the military. So I've never paid the full price for Office but I would certainly take that over what amounts to a lifetime subscription.

Based on the fact that you had a 9-year old computer you are probably going to use the next one for at least 5 years. I would go with the one-time purchase for sure.

Cranky

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2020, 12:20:10 PM »
Do you actually need Office?

When we bought a new iMac I was going to buy Word and then I realized that the Apple equivalent stuff that came with the Mac were fine. You can save documents in a word format if you’re sending them to someone else.

solon

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2020, 01:19:45 PM »
Do you actually need Office?

When we bought a new iMac I was going to buy Word and then I realized that the Apple equivalent stuff that came with the Mac were fine. You can save documents in a word format if you’re sending them to someone else.

There are also libreoffice, google docs, and zoho. I've had great luck with all three of those. (And they're all free.)

mspym

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2020, 03:56:07 PM »
Hmmm I have worked with libre office and Google docs and they were weirdly clunky in comparison to MS Office esp the spreadsheets. I paid $15 for my version and would probably buy it again if and when I change my laptop.

Goldielocks

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #5 on: May 02, 2020, 04:04:41 PM »
Do you actually need Office?

When we bought a new iMac I was going to buy Word and then I realized that the Apple equivalent stuff that came with the Mac were fine. You can save documents in a word format if you’re sending them to someone else.

There are also libreoffice, google docs, and zoho. I've had great luck with all three of those. (And they're all free.)
Yep,   these will do 85% of what you want to get done.  If you have MS office at work, then using free versions for personal use is fine.  If you need to buy it for your own self-employment, you are earning money with it, then MS Office subscription is actually great, much better than the one time purchase.

Cranky

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #6 on: May 03, 2020, 04:32:09 AM »
We had kids at school who used libreoffice, and it seemed pretty clunky. They always had formatting problems, but probably the fact that they were 13yo didn’t help with that.

Catica

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #7 on: May 03, 2020, 04:53:41 AM »
I will be soon looking to replace my 9 year old iMac with a new iMAC.

I have MS Office on the current machine (Office for iMac 2011 - no longer supported or updated).  When getting a new computer, I will want to/need to get an upgraded version of MS Office.  I basically have two choices:


1.)  The one time purchase, that will get updates for some period of time (as long as MS wants to, I guess).

2.)  Subscribe to Office 365 and pay the yearly fee with regular upgrades - as well One Drive storage.


Has anyone here been through this thought process lately?  Any words of advice on what you did and why? 

Thanks in advance for any guidance.
What do you need it for?

foghorn

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #8 on: May 03, 2020, 06:41:04 AM »
I will be soon looking to replace my 9 year old iMac with a new iMAC.

I have MS Office on the current machine (Office for iMac 2011 - no longer supported or updated).  When getting a new computer, I will want to/need to get an upgraded version of MS Office.  I basically have two choices:


1.)  The one time purchase, that will get updates for some period of time (as long as MS wants to, I guess).

2.)  Subscribe to Office 365 and pay the yearly fee with regular upgrades - as well One Drive storage.


Has anyone here been through this thought process lately?  Any words of advice on what you did and why? 

Thanks in advance for any guidance.
What do you need it for?

It is nothing more than I have always had a copy of MS Office on any computer I have ever owned.  So, do I NEED it?  Maybe not.  But I have always used it and have many money related spreadsheets using Excel - and Word get used regularly as well.  PowerPoint is rarely put to use, but still gets launched a few times a year. 

terran

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #9 on: May 03, 2020, 06:45:30 AM »
I would agree with others, give libreoffice a try.If you give it a fair shake and really want to go back then I'd probably buy the one time purchase. Your last computer and MS Office lasted 9 years. I'm sure you'll save money with the one time purchase compared to the subscription in that time and you didn't feel the need to upgrade that version.

OtherJen

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #10 on: May 03, 2020, 06:56:27 AM »
In my field, most of my clients want me to have the latest MS Office updates (I think it’s even in one of my contracts), and OneDrive has saved my ass on a couple of occasions when I’ve had computer issues. For those reasons, we pay for Office 365 (and install and use it on all our other compatible computers and devices; I think one of our relatives also uses one of the installs).

If I didn’t need it for work, I would just buy the one-time license and use that until updates stopped.

rosarugosa

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #11 on: May 03, 2020, 07:02:26 AM »
Foghorn: I recently went through exactly the same thought process.  I ended up copying and pasting my data into Google docs and sheets.  It's been a couple of months now, and I feel like it was a good choice for me.  If I had lots and lots of documents, I might have gone with a different choice.

terran

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #12 on: May 03, 2020, 07:21:50 AM »
Foghorn: I recently went through exactly the same thought process.  I ended up copying and pasting my data into Google docs and sheets.  It's been a couple of months now, and I feel like it was a good choice for me.  If I had lots and lots of documents, I might have gone with a different choice.

I think you can also open excel files in google drive if you don't want to have to copy and paste things. You'll still need to confirm things continue to work, but probably easier than copy/paste for complex sheets with multiple tabs.

Catica

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #13 on: May 03, 2020, 08:43:11 AM »
I will be soon looking to replace my 9 year old iMac with a new iMAC.

I have MS Office on the current machine (Office for iMac 2011 - no longer supported or updated).  When getting a new computer, I will want to/need to get an upgraded version of MS Office.  I basically have two choices:


1.)  The one time purchase, that will get updates for some period of time (as long as MS wants to, I guess).

2.)  Subscribe to Office 365 and pay the yearly fee with regular upgrades - as well One Drive storage.


Has anyone here been through this thought process lately?  Any words of advice on what you did and why? 

Thanks in advance for any guidance.
What do you need it for?

It is nothing more than I have always had a copy of MS Office on any computer I have ever owned.  So, do I NEED it?  Maybe not.  But I have always used it and have many money related spreadsheets using Excel - and Word get used regularly as well.  PowerPoint is rarely put to use, but still gets launched a few times a year.
Then just stick with Apple equivalent (Pages, Sheets, Keynote etc.), they come with your computer and are free.  They can open MS Office docs and you can save as MS Office docs if you want.

jim555

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Re: MS Office - One Time Purchase vs. Office 365 Subscription?
« Reply #14 on: May 03, 2020, 11:09:40 AM »
Office, the only thing that makes it possibly worth it is the OneDrive 1TB storage.  Plenty of free Office alternatives that are fine.