Office 365

[mosaix]

I use Open Office and am quite happy with it. I also use Dropbox and so am able to view my files on my iPhone. However, I can't edit them.

I see that Microsoft says you can use Office 365 on your desktop, laptop, tablet and phone. Does this mean that I would be able to update files on my iPhone that I created on my laptop? And does this include spreadsheets?

Anything else I should know about Office 365? Good or bad.

The current price is £79.99 p.a. (or £7.99 per month) for 2 - 6 people, which doesn't seem too bad. But Open Office is free...

 

[Foxbat]

I think you do that through the cloud.

If it was a one-off price of £79.99 I'd go for Office but I stopped using it as soon as it became rental (same with Adobe products). I'll stick with Open Office.

 

[Wayne Mack]

In the US, at least, Office 365 comes with a yearly fee. My wife has been using it and once the first year expired, she has been able to continue using it (at least Word) despite a yellow banner across the top of the page. She never used cloud options. If going with Microsoft, I suggest just buying the current Office version, I think the pay back period versus Office 365 is about three years.

I have been using LibreOffice which is an off-shoot of OpenOffice. I tired both and the deciding feature for me was that LibreOffice could save files into .docx format while OpenOffice could only save into .doc format. For my day-to-day work, though, I simply use the default .odt format. I use Writer and use Calc spreadsheets for plotting and for character and environment notes.

There is some discussion of OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice in the third page of this link: Writing software.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I literally just bought a subscription to Microsoft 365 yesterday. It's not just that the office apps are essential - the 1TB cloud storage will be invaluable for everyone in my family.

I tried OpenOffice a few years back, but found problems with it importing and exporting to Office files. Open Office messes with the formatting, so it's great if you only want to use documents in that program, but not if you want to use those documents with any other. Which, for me, meant no good for work or even self-publishing.

Google Docs has a similar problem, and even less functionality.

You get what you pay for.

 

[mosaix]

I literally just bought a subscription to Microsoft 365 yesterday. It's not just that the office apps are essential - the 1TB cloud storage will be invaluable for everyone in my family.

I tried OpenOffice a few years back, but found problems with trying it importing and export to Office files. Open Office messes with the formatting, so it's great if you only want to use documents in that program, but not if you want to use those documents with any other. Which, for me, meant no good for work or even self-publishing.

Google Docs has a similar problem, and even less functionality.

You get what you pay for.

Thanks, Brian. Two questions.

1) Have you tried updating documents or spreadsheets on your smartphone yet?

2) Are documents stored on your own discs as well as the cloud?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Thanks, Brian. Two questions.

1) Have you tried updating documents or spreadsheets on your smartphone yet?

2) Are documents stored on your own discs as well as the cloud?

I don't really use a smartphone, so I'm not sure of the functionality. My iPhone 5 is too old to install the mobile apps as they require OS 13+.

As for storing documents - you designate OneDrive to copy specific folders, so just ensure the folder with your work in is one of those down for backup. Alternatively, just copy the folder directly to your OneDrive folder in Windows Explorer.

 

[KiraAnn]

I hate Office 365 with a purple passion!

So many of my clients want me to have an O365 email account, and my company as well, but you can’t have multiple email accounts open at the same time, like you can with fat client. As for local email files - not available. Mine right now go back to 2005. Also, it is slow, draggingly so.

Nope, doesn’t fulfill my needs.

 

[.matthew.]

@Brian G Turner In my experience the formatting works well between open and word. I've used it many times with no obvious problems so might have just been whatever specific formatting you were doing.

As to the OP, I think there are apps for your phone that will let you edit those file types for free as well. Just search in the store with whatever your file type you use and it should kick up something. Then pull them from dropbox, edit, and save... though having tried to edit docs on a phone, I can't exactly advise it

 

[Brian G Turner]

@Brian G Turner In my experience the formatting works well between open and word. I've used it many times with no obvious problems so might have just been whatever specific formatting you were doing.

A few years back I set up Open Office for the kids schoolwork, but there were repeated formatting problems with opening doc files and saving working as doc that I had to get a MS Office package for them. Maybe it's better now, but it means I no longer trust "free" as a mark of quality office software.

 

[Foxbat]

I’d happily buy quality office software but I refuse to rent it.
Actually, come to think of it, office packages are part of the problem for me. All I need is a word processor. I still have MS Office 2000 and the only bit I ever used was Word. The rest was and is redundant from the start.

 

[mosaix]

I’d happily buy quality office software but I refuse to rent it.
Actually, come to think of it, office packages are part of the problem for me. All I need is a word processor. I still have MS Office 2000 and the only bit I ever used was Word. The rest was and is redundant from the start.

I also have Office 2000, @Foxbat. I had to stop using it as, under Widows 10, Word would frequently hang and I’d lose any changes I’d made to my document. Hence Open Office.

 

[Foxbat]

I also have Office 2000, @Foxbat. I had to stop using it as, under Widows 10, Word would frequently hang and I’d lose any changes I’d made to my document. Hence Open Office.

I have a similar problem. I use Open Office on my Win 10 PC but I’m still able to use Office 2000 on my ageing Vista machine. I find the porting of Word to Open Office works fine.

 

[.matthew.]

I too use OpenOffice for the same reasons, but if you are having conversion issues it might be an idea to try out LibreOffice as it's the continuation of OpenOffice, but actually updated to this day

 

[mosaix]

I have a similar problem. I use Open Office on my Win 10 PC but I’m still able to use Office 2000 on my ageing Vista machine. I find the porting of Word to Open Office works fine.

I was in the same position, @Foxbat. I was able to use Office 2000 on my Windows XP (my favourite version of Windows) desktop until the screen just stayed blank one day.

I also object to paying rental. However, my daughter, against my advice, is about to sign up to Office 365 to go with her new laptop. It comes with four licences apparently so Mrs Mosaix and I could take a licence each and help her out by sharing the rental.

 

[Foxbat]

At least that would spread the cost somewhat.
XP is also still my favourite version of Windows.
How long, I wonder, before the operating system itself becomes subscription based?

 

[Wayne Mack]

How long, I wonder, before the operating system itself becomes subscription based?

Isn't the hardware essentially becoming subscription based?

 

[Foxbat]

Isn't the hardware essentially becoming subscription based?

I’m not sure what you mean.

You can buy the hardware and build your own computer (I’ve done it many times in the past). For example, you buy a motherboard, graphics card etc, you don’t rent it, but it’s all pointless without the operating system.

 

[.matthew.]

I’m not sure what you mean.

You can buy the hardware and build your own computer (I’ve done it many times in the past). For example, you buy a motherboard, graphics card etc, you don’t rent it, but it’s all pointless without the operating system.

True, but if he's talking cloud computing, then, in essence, you are renting the hardware that is run on.

 

[Foxbat]

True, but if he's talking cloud computing, then, in essence, you are renting the hardware that is run on.

Ah. I see. Makes sense now.

Personally, I have no intention now or in the future to use cloud computing. As far as I’m concerned, if hackers can get passwords, card numbers etc on a seemingly regular basis from various sites then it’s likely that one day they will get through cloud storage security.
I simply don’t trust cloud computing to safely store any personal data.

 

[tinkerdan]

I paid for office 2007 for my xp machine and decided it was enough for now on win 10.
However I have to be vigilant to make sure MS hasn't somehow overwritten the files because, of course, I'm supposed to want the new 365 software.
I've already had to reinstall the 2007 once and it does have errors when first executing; however those are for things I never use in any of MS Products.

As for the the cloud--I've tried several different sources and often they are cloud tied with something else such as 365 has and the real problem with those is that eventually the cost of maintenance for the vendor--MS--becomes too much and they cancel the program and you end up scrambling to get your stuff off of their servers and onto a backup that you should have been doing to start with. I use multiple terabyte drives for back-up and keep all my stuff that's near and dear right here and one in a firebox.