What's the best way to get Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, and Power Point)??

Here is a year subscription to Microsoft 365 for 69 bucks

LINK

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I'm always used to them already being on my Windows computer already installed.

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You paid for it then too, you just didn't realize it.

Office 365 is the way to go. Get a student discount if you can.

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is there a better deal out there?

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Libre Office may fit your needs

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Hard to find a better deal than free

Google Docs is another free option. It blows my mind that the world has had free office software for over a decade, yet Microsoft still has the world convinced that they need to pay them for it.

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Hard to find a better deal than free

Google Docs is another free option. It blows my mind that the world has had free office software for over a decade, yet Microsoft still has the world convinced that they need to pay them for it.

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Office Web apps are free too. You can get completely free and compatible Word and Excel files over at outlook.com. Did I mention that this is free?

What do you not get? VBA, macros, etc. But Google Docs and Libre Office don't give you that either.

Why an annual subscription when you can buy the suite for $99?

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Office Web apps are free too. You can get completely free and compatible Word and Excel files over at outlook.com. Did I mention that this is free?

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This furthers my point: it blows my mind that they can still convince people to pay for it.

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What do you not get? VBA, macros, etc. But Google Docs and Libre Office don't give you that either.

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LibreOffice allows scripting/macros in several different languages. Granted, I don't know how the capabilities compare to what's possible with VBA... anybody know?

But about VBA and macros... what do people actually do with them that isn't better accomplished another way? In my ~20 years of computing, I have never had a need to script or add any sort of logic beyond formulas to a document. I've never had to work on shared documents, though, so I know I'm probably just missing a blatantly obvious use case. But what is it? Macros in documents just seems so messy. Isn't it better to use a database rather than hack Excel to hell to make it act like one? If your document needs to pull external data, isn't it better to build a website? Seems like the browser is all around a much better app platform than an office suite. It is free, platform-agnostic, more flexible, etc. What am I missing? Are legacy docs still carrying Office sales?

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I helped someone recently find some free excel templates using macros to let you do employee scheduling and hour calculation. The other option for them was doing everything by hand.

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The same can be done in LibreOffice, so the difference here was being able to find a free template for Excel? The irony..

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Is a DSLR better than a smart phone camera? Yes, but the best camera is the one you have on you when you need to take a picture. Not everyone works in a company or a department with access to custom programming, and much of the software aimed at business is aimed at big business and therefore is often very expensive. Hacking Excel provides access to functionality that otherwise wouldn't be available to many people.

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OK, I can see the appeal of Excel as an app platform for individuals or small businesses, considering that in many cases there are macros already out there that accomplish what needs to be done so they might not have to write much code. But it is my understanding that big businesses are the heaviest users of excel macros, right? There's a reason that software aimed at big business is expensive: it's worth it (usually). It seems like a nightmare to manage a library of macro'd excel documents. Sharing files/data is hacky, password protection is hacky, updating copies seems a pain, etc. The sunk cost fallacy is a bitch, eh?

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More people have access to Excel than a web server.

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Ehh, I see it the other way. Web servers are a dime a dozen (actually cheaper than that). Any machine can be a server.

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It's also simpler because you only need Excel.

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When multiple people are using the same document(s), doesn't Excel make it more complex? Isn't workbook sharing flaky? Aren't there still file locking issues? How often do you think people accidentally save a shared file locally? I can see it being simpler when the use case is simple. I can also see Excel multiplying the complexity once the use case gets just a little more complex. I am probably wrong, though.

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I once set up a php based Knowledgebase, in theory the set up was as plug and play as it can get. Use WAMP for an easy install Apache/PHP/MySQL, then install the php scripts for the knowledgebase. But it took me the better part of a day to get the stupid ioncube copyright protection software working with it.

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Replace me with someone who's level of computer expertise doesn't extend beyond using Office and setting up even a "plug and play" web app might have been an impossible task to accomplish.

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Yeah, but can you build a knowledgebase in Excel?


I guess I'm just saying that, while I can see how some Excel macros can be useful, it seems it only takes a little bit of complexity to make another platform a better choice.

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Inb4 CAD703X says gdocs.

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let the anger flow through you

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I thought you were talking about spreadsheets using macros in general, not Excel vs. Libre Calc. The person I set up with the spreadsheets actually edits the Excel templates with Libre Calc.

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Well, my main question is why do people pay for Office? When foshizzle made the point that Office web apps are free, but that they lack macro support, my focus turned to whether or not macros are worth the price. The only example of a good use for macros turns out to work perfectly well in LibreOffice, so it sounds like they are not worth the premium Microsoft charges.

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I hadn't considered collaboration, that certainly is an issue, especially as people collaborate more and more in office.

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Yeah, it's almost inevitable that work will be shared.

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It's all about the path of least resistance. I'd assume much of the macro usage came out of an individual tasked with creating TPS reports finding an easier way to create them. The person making those reports might not even know TPSBuilderPro exists, but Excel is already installed on his computer.

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Yeah, I get it. It just seems like that particular path of least resistance can lead you straight into a brick wall.

I'm a complete google fanboy, and I use it almost exclusively in my workflow. I've pretty much forced its use onto my entire school, and we have over 200 faculty and 2400 students who are now using the google ecosystem.

It's absolutely amazing, and google classroom is a lifesaver for going paperless.

All that being said, Sheets lacks some functionality with sorting (and I'm sure other things as well, as I'm not an Excel poweruser) that I can do with Excel. When I'm initially populating spreadsheets and setting them up, I'll often start them in Excel then migrate them to Sheets.

Also: be careful with collaboration. We had like 200 teachers trying to enter data about student grades and interventions into a spreadsheet at the same time recently, and that didn't work out so well.