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.There are better Mac office suites out there, but if you want a solid, old-school experience on Mac, Apache OpenOffice could be the option for you. I chose Microsoft Word for Mac when I switched to a MacBook Pro some years ago. You can use these MS Office alternative for MAC to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, create database, create diagrams, manage. These perform many of the tasks that are performed by Microsoft Office on Mac. These office suite for MAC are quite simple, easy to use, and are feature rich. Here is a list of best free office for MAC.
![]() Office Free Office ForBeing text based, it’s hopeless for storing images, but it’s perfect for texts with simple formatting. Rtf (rich text) file format, which almost any word processor can read. 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 Microsoft’s. If your documents include multiple columns, embedded images, custom fonts, footnotes and similar features, you can more or less forget about using anything else. 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. Boxed OfficeThe 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. But even if you switch to a free alternative, you’ll spend time learning a new interface and handling your old documents. If you are not a business, you can certainly live without it or use the free online version. If you’re paying staff, say, £20,000 to £60,000 a year, and can’t 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 “can’t live without it”. This applies in spades to files that use VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and macros, and to Excel spreadsheets where errors can have career-ending financial consequences.This isn’t going to change in a hurry because Microsoft Office is also a platform with hundreds of add-ons and plug-ins, it’s supported by thousands of books, video tutorials, websites and consultants, and it’s 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. I suspect Microsoft will support it until 14 October 2025, which is the end of support date for Office 2016, and that Office 2022 (yes, there will be one) will only get five years.A further complication is that Microsoft only supports the last three versions of MacOS.Office Home & Student 2019 looks like a bargain at £119.99 or less, but that’s a single-installation version. That means you’re unlikely to get the full 10 years we used to get by moving Office to new PCs, and perhaps explains Microsoft’s attempts to reduce its 10-year support lifecycle.In fact, Microsoft has only announced mainstream support for Office Home & Student 2019 for the five years up to 10 October 2023, with extended support marked “Not Applicable”. If you lose the activation code, you can’t get a new one without giving Microsoft proof of purchase.Cheaper versions of Office are locked to the PC on which they were originally installed. Extra features over the Home & Student edition include Outlook, the desktop email and organisation program, 60 minutes of Skype calls, apps for Android and Apple iOS smartphones and tablets, and 1TB of online storage instead of 15GB. Photograph: MicrosoftOffice 365, launched in 2013, is the cloud-based version of Office, but usually provides access to the full desktop programs as well. Office 365Office 365 includes online access and cloud storage. It will be more than the usual £12 a year. Everyone gets their own terabyte of storage, up to 6TB in all. This costs £79.99 a year for up to six users, including friends. (Google charges £57 a year for 1TB, and £24.99 a year for 200GB of Gdrive.)However, the family version, Office 365 Home, is far better value. Excel locked for editing macSecond, Office 365 has various collaborative and AI-based cloud features. The Office 2019 versions are fixed. First, the 365 programs have more and better features, because they are continuously updated. There’s no need to buy three or more single-machine copies to install them on a desktop, laptop, 2-in-1 tablet and so on.Also, Microsoft claims that Office 365 is better than Office 2019. If you can share the cost, it’s terrific value, because each user can install the full Office on multiple PCs and Macs. ![]() ![]() All our journalism is independent and is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative.By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that third-party cookies will be set. Users who like it could consider a “lifetime” purchase for $79.99 (individuals) or $119.99 (businesses), but try SoftMaker first.Have you got a question? Email it to article contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through andMakes a purchase. Unfortunately, the free version includes advertising, which I found unbearable, and the Premium version isn’t worth $29.99 a year.
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