Pros and Cons of updating Microsoft Office

[Z3Dreamer]

Have been using Excel and Word for maybe 35 years. Outlook for 20. Currently have Microsoft Office 2010. Considering updating to Office 2019/2021 or Office 365. Office 2021 comes out in 3 weeks. Before any discounts, prices are $125/$219 for one time Office purchase. The higher price would add Outlook and some other products. Or $70 or $100 per year for 365, depending on how many users.

Microsoft stopped supporting Office 2010 a year ago.

Want to hear comments from heavy, not occasional users, who have updated to Office 2019 or Office 365. Were you happy with the updated products? I would only use Excel, Word and Outlook, so I am not interested in PowerPoint or OneDrive. Don't want this to be a Microsoft bashing thread as I can bash them with the best of you.

Bonus question: Before Excel came out in 1985, Microsoft had another spreadsheet program. Who has used it?

 

[big-papa]

Have been using Excel and Word for maybe 35 years. Outlook for 20. Currently have Microsoft Office 2010. Considering updating to Office 2019/2021 or Office 365. Office 2021 comes out in 3 weeks. Before any discounts, prices are $125/$219 for one time Office purchase. The higher price would add Outlook and some other products. Or $70 or $100 per year for 365, depending on how many users.

Microsoft stopped supporting Office 2010 a year ago.

Want to hear comments from heavy, not occasional users, who have updated to Office 2019 or Office 365. Were you happy with the updated products? I would only use Excel, Word and Outlook, so I am not interested in PowerPoint or OneDrive. Don't want this to be a Microsoft bashing thread as I can bash them with the best of you.

Bonus question: Before Excel came out in 1985, Microsoft had another spreadsheet program. Who has used it?

I was using a very old version of office at home (mainly excel and outlook), purchased through the Home User Program (HUP) at microsoft through a former employer. Served me well till I started sharing files from others using 365, that contained a lot of new features. Recently during a repair to fix an issue, it got uninstalled. Since that was about 4 employers ago (they email you license keys, etc via your work email address) I was stuck. So I took the plunge via a 365 subscription, but purchased through Amazon and was about $60 after taxes for a single user.

In a year, I'll have a new laptop and will cancel the subscription and move to 2021 instead. So far, no issues with 365 (we use it at work too), but I have a personal aversion to renting software.

Cheers,
big-papa

 

[njhowie]

I have my trusty Microsoft Office Pro 2003 CD and whenever I get a new computer I load it on. Never had any problems, it's run flawlessly on every operating system since purchased, it does everything I need, and it's been able to open every Word/Excel document I've been sent. I use Word maybe a few times a year, but work with the Excel daily, all day long.

What is your reason for considering switching/updating? Is the 2010 not able to do something you need? That should be your first consideration.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

I have my trusty Microsoft Office Pro 2003 CD and whenever I get a new computer I load it on. Never had any problems, it's run flawlessly on every operating system since purchased, it does everything I need, and it's been able to open every Word/Excel document I've been sent. I use Word maybe a few times a year, but work with the Excel daily, all day long.

What is your reason for considering switching/updating? Is the 2010 not able to do something you need? That should be your first consideration.

Thanks for replying. Microsoft does not update 2003 or 2010 for new security issues. I have chanced the vulnerability thing for a year. Don't want to risk it for the small sum Microsoft charges. Also Outlook 2010 could use some rewrite as I have outgrown the 2010 version. I loved Excel and Word 1995 and 2003.

I am looking for features that those who have upgraded really like to help me decide whether I want the higher priced options.

 

[jim584672]

I have Office 2013 via HUP and have used Office 2019. No functional difference really. Office 2019 has a more updated look but that is cosmetic. No compelling reason to update.


"Bonus question: Before Excel came out in 1985, Microsoft had another spreadsheet program. Who has used it?" - MS Multiplan for CP/M.

 

[target2019]

MS Multiplan ran on a Mac too. Long live 1984!

I am in the same boat as OP, and perfectly happy with 2010 office purchased through HUP long ago. But I do think of what happens with the next Windows upgrade. So this discussion about options is interesting to me.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

I have Office 2013 via HUP and have used Office 2019. No functional difference really. Office 2019 has a more updated look but that is cosmetic. No compelling reason to update.


"Bonus question: Before Excel came out in 1985, Microsoft had another spreadsheet program. Who has used it?" - MS Multiplan for CP/M.

Jim is the winner!

 

[jim584672]

Jim is the winner!

I ran that on a Commodore 128 in CP/M mode.

 

[statsman]

I am still using Office 2010 (Home & Student). Having three licenses per purchase was great, especially when the family had three PCs and two laptops running Win7Pro until a couple of years ago.

Now, it's just two PCs (one is a backup not being used). I suspect if we were still working, I would likely be updating Office to whatever was compatible with what the corporations had rolled out.

But for personal use? I see no reason to update as I am not downloading Office files of unknown origin into it. I managed to get it installed on my Win10Pro PC a couple of years ago. And I am still seeing security updates on Office 2010 from time to time.

 

[Golden sunsets]

I used to buy the software, but switched to 365 over 6 years ago. I haven't looked back. Also you get free tech support with 365. The cost is worth it to me.

 

[bobandsherry]

As a power user myself, there's some new features, but nothing compelling to switch. You might find this useful:

https://softwarekeep.com/help-cente...-microsoft-excel-2010-vs-2013-vs-2016-vs-2019

However I too had old version under HUP program and now retired so unable to recover the license key as email on file was my work email.

Anyways, with new PC I no longer could use HUP and made move to Office 365. You can find a deal for $30 for single user or $60 for family (up to 6 users) watch for them on NewEgg.

For me the value besides supported and security patches continuing to be applied is the OneDrive. Getting 1TB storage is a steal at $30 just for the cloud (IMHO) and software is the bonus. Family gets 6TB total storage for $60 (on a deal or $99 without) and can share with my son, daughter or other "family".

 

[CaptTom]

I'm not in the "rent software" or "blow that dough" camps, so I may be the outlier here.

I'll never go to 365. Not just the money, but on principle.

I've still got a legal copy of 2013 which I keep around for some old MS-Access things I still support. Once those are gone, I'm done with M$. Windows 10 will probably be my last Windows version, too. For the record, I supported M$ software for about the last half of my career and I'm pretty familiar with it.

With the exception of their database app, the open-source suites LibreOffice and/or OpenOffice work great for everything I'll ever need to do as a retiree. This includes various organizations I belong to, interacting with other members and officers.

 

[thod]

I also use LibreOffice, it is fine for the infrequent needs I have. It has also been able to open any documents I have encountered.

 

[Sojourner]

I'm not in the "rent software" or "blow that dough" camps, so I may be the outlier here.

I'll never go to 365. Not just the money, but on principle.

Sam here. With rare exceptions (VPN service), I don't pay for annual subscriptions to use software. I'm using an old copy of MS Office I got from my last employer, and it still works perfectly fine. If I ever felt the need to upgrade, I'd look for a deal on the latest desktop version of Office and just take the one-time payment hit. I may end up doing that in a few years when MS stops providing security updates/patches to Office 2013.

 

[Sunset]

I also use LibreOffice, it is fine for the infrequent needs I have. It has also been able to open any documents I have encountered.

Ditto..

Of course I run linux, so it would be awkward to run MS excel.

But I'm far from a heavy spreadsheet user, not what OP wants to hear from.

 

[Lsbcal]

I have used 365 for around 3 or 4 years now. I do a lot of investment stuff with Excel and the peace of mind is worth it. Plus I like Onedrive and occasionally use Word. I also backup weekly so do not totally rely on Onedrive.

I also have 3 other family members on this plan. So that is a bonus. If my computer hiccups I can get on DW's system and continue work so again peace of mind.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

OP here. Thanks for the ideas. I have never rented software, but am always willing to consider new things. A number of you are quite happy with 365. Especially with the cloud storage. I will look more into this. Have not used "One-Drive" that much. Need to check out some of the features.

BobAndSherry - thanks for the link. Some nice features in Office 2019, but nothing that calls to me.

Thod-I know many who use and are happy with LibreOffice. I have tried it a few times, but it lacks too many features for me. At least the last 3 times I looked into it.

As I said, I am no fan of MS. I fought when my company wanted to switch from Lotus 1-2-3 to Excel. I ranted when I found out that our backups were no good because they were done on DOS 2.0 and now we were on DOS 3.0. Backups were not backward compatible. But sometimes you got to just grin and bear it.

Any more feedback from those who upgraded from 2010 to 2019 or 365?

 

[PageTwo]

A personal 365 subscription is $99/yr and you can share it with 5 more people... includes all the apps (including more obscure ones like Publisher and OneNote) plus 1TB of OneDrive storage for each user. It's a steal in my opinion, particularly if some of those 5 people are also heavy users... students for example. Everybody stays constantly up to date on feature updates (which drop pretty frequently) and security patches. My 2c - totally worth it.

 

[mpeirce]

For anyone who isn’t wedded to excel and has a Mac or iPad, Numbers if pretty good for normal use, has beautiful graphs, and is completely free.

I have same fairly complex investment spreadsheets in Numbers. And use it every day to fetch high stock prices and update where I stand.

 

[bobandsherry]

I have found that Google Sheets is also a decent option to Excel. I use it when I deal with anything stock related as it has the ability to pull in stock prices. Being "cloud" based is a plus as I can look at my Sheets anywhere, including from my phone. GS has come a long way from where it was a couple years ago. I was considering just moving 100% to GS and dump Excel. But when the Office 365 came with the huge OneDrive storage I just went with Office 365 but still use GS as well. One thing GS falls short on is Pivot Tables, at least compared to Excel. I do a lot of stuff with Pivot Tables so that's mostly why I stuck with Excel as my go to spreadsheet.

 

[mpeirce]

Being "cloud" based is a plus as I can look at my Sheets anywhere, including from my phone.

That’ll what I like about Numbers too. With cloud storage (i use iCloud, but others work fine) I usually do my daily update on my iMac, but often use the iPad. In a pinch I use my iPhone too. There’s even a browser version if need be.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Any more feedback from those who upgraded from 2010 to 2019 or 365?

Made the switch a couple years ago. I get one personal license for 365 for $69 a year. Before that I was on Office 2003 and then Office 2010. I hate paying for subscription software but One Drive cloud storage and the ability to use the software on mobile devices makes it worth while. I also prefer Outlook email. For the amount of time I use Excel, Word, and Outlook, plus the bonus of One Drive I think it's worth the $69 a year.

 

[zinger1457]

I was using Office 2010 until I signed up for a class at the local CC and I was able to get Office 365 for free through the edu program, figured I'd try it for a year. I do like Office 365, it also includes Outlook which I want. It's been 4 years and I'm still using it for free, not sure how I fell through the cracks but will probably switch to Office 2021 when the time comes.

 

[CaptTom]

Oh, yeah... OneDrive...

Another thing I'll never use is cloud storage. Never mind PAY to use it. Interesting that some of you trust it for your financial stuff. I get the attraction; ease of use and not having to think about it. But if you've followed the headlines lately, you might see why I'm not a fan.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

Made the switch a couple years ago. I get one personal license for 365 for $69 a year. Before that I was on Office 2003 and then Office 2010. I hate paying for subscription software but One Drive cloud storage and the ability to use the software on mobile devices makes it worth while. I also prefer Outlook email. For the amount of time I use Excel, Word, and Outlook, plus the bonus of One Drive I think it's worth the $69 a year.

^^^^^ This describes me as well. The annual subscription is a nuisance, but I like my software current and maintained.