Welcome to our review of Word for Mac 2016, updated on 29 Feb 2016. The biggest and most welcome change to Word for Mac 2016 is the new Ribbon-based look and feel, designed from the ground up for. Office for Mac Home & Student 2011 cost $120 and $200 for Home & Business. A subscription to Office 365 Personal -- which includes Office 2016 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote.
While Pages is a great word processor, Microsoft Word and other programs available with Microsoft Office are still widely used. It can be frustrating to pass documents between Apple's applications and Microsoft Office. I have dealt with getting Word documents from friends, only to open them in Pages a realize they aren't formatting correctly, or the spacing is off, etc.
The good news is Microsoft Office for Mac is pretty great. If you've ever used a PC before, you're likely familiar with the interface, and personally, I think the design of the Office programs for Mac is stellar. Of course, Microsoft offers two versions of Office for Mac, Microsoft Office 2016 and Microsoft Office 365, so here's a breakdown of each one so you can choose the right one for you.
Users and devices
When deciding what Microsoft Office package you want, you're going to need to know how you intend to use it. Are you one of those people who want to use Office on your Mac, iPad, and iPhone, or do you only need it on your MacBook Pro you use for work or school every day?
- Office 2016 Home & Student: Installed on one Mac
- Office 2016 Home & Business: Installed on one Mac
- Office 365 Personal: Installed on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad with only one user allowed to access the 1TB One Drive storage.
- Office 365 Personal: Installed on up to five Macs, PCs, iPhones, and iPads with five users allowed to access the 1TB One Drive storage.
Programs
Which programs you need in your Microsoft Office suite will also be a critical deciding factor in which version you buy.
- Office 2016 Home & Student: Comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote
- Office 2016 Home & Business: Comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook
- Office 365 Personal: Comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher (PC only), and Access (PC only).
- Office 365 Home: Comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher (PC only), and Access (PC only).
Cloud storage
Microsoft OneDrive is a cloud storage service that you can use to store files, photos, documents, and other data. If you get either version of Microsoft Office 365, you'll get a free TB of OneDrive storage to access and use.
- Office 365 Personal: 1TB of OneDrive storage for one user, plus 60 minutes per month for Skype calls.
- Office 365 Home: 1TB of OneDrive storage accessible by up to five users, plus 60 minutes per month for Skype calls.
Neither tier of Microsoft Office 2016 comes with OneDrive storage.
Pricing
The most significant difference by far is pricing and payment model. Microsoft Office 2016 is a one-time payment, while Office 365 is a monthly subscription model.
- Office 2016 Home & Student: $149.99 and doesn't come with updates.
- Office 2016 Home & Business: $229.99 and doesn't come with updates.
- Office 365 Personal: $69.99 per year (or $6.99 per month), includes updates.
- Office 365 Home: $99.99 per year (or 9.99 per month), includes updates.
The bottom line
Office 365
The enormous benefit to Office 365 is the 1TB of OneDrive storage. This means all your work documents, personal finance spreadsheets, or school presentations can be saved locally and in your OneDrive, keeping all your data safe and accessible to you whenever you need it.
Chances are Office 365 Personal is the best bet for most people, but if you love the free cloud storage and you need Office for your entire family, the Office 365 Home version is your best bet.
Office 2016
If you're looking for the basic Office program like Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, and don't need OneDrive cloud storage, Office 2016 is perfectly fine for one person.
You'll only have to pay once, meaning you don't have to worry about that yearly subscription fee hitting your credit card every year. Of course, the lack of updates is a little annoying, but for most users, you'll probably not even notice or miss the extra features Office 365 provides anyways.
Office 2016 Home & Student is going to be all the majority of people will need; however, if you do want Outlook your can always get the Home & Business version as well.
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Here’s what we know about Office 2019 for Mac. There’s a matching page about Office 2019 for Windows.
We’ll update this page as new information becomes available.
Before you get too excited
Do NOT buy Office 2019 if you have Office 365 plan like Office 365 Home, Office 365 Personal or an enterprise plan. In other words, you pay for Office as an annual fee.
Office 2019 for Mac is NOT like past versions such as Office 2016, Office 2011 etc. It’s NOT a new version intended for all Microsoft Office users.
Anyone on an Office 365 plan does NOT need Office 2019.
Office 365 ‘subscribers’ have a more advanced version of Microsoft Office already.
Office 2016 for Office 365 customers get regular updates of new and improved features, including cloud-based features that won’t be in Office 2019.
What is Office 2019?
Office 2019 for Windows or Mac are separate versions of Office for anyone who buys the perpetual license.
Perpetual License is what Microsoft calls paying once for the ongoing use of Microsoft Office. Compared to the ‘subscription’ or annual payment model that Microsoft prefers and has been pushing customers towards.
Office 2019 is for non-subscription customers who want some new features but won’t switch to the regularly updated Office software sold via Office 365.
![Cost Cost](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125676104/685309856.png)
Microsoft wants all customers to ‘subscribe’ to Office because that’s more profitable for the company with a more regular cash flow. But there are a significant number of corporate users who refuse to pay that way or they don’t want the increasingly cloud connected features of the main Office software sold with Office 365 plans. See Microsoft’s dirty little secret about Office 2019.
Who should buy it?
Anyone who wants any of the new/changed features in Office 2019 and is prepared to pay once for essentially fixed feature software.
Unlike the Office 365 subscription releases, Office 2019 will not get any feature updates over time.
Who should NOT buy it?
If you have an Office 365 plan do NOT get Office 2019.
Existing Office software for Office 365 users already have all the features in Office 2019 plus a lot more.
When will it be released?
Office 2019 for Windows and Mac are now available to volume licence and commercial customers.
A detailed and independent look at Windows 10, especially for Microsoft Office.
Fully up-to-date with coverage of the May 2019 major update of Windows 10.
This918 page book shows you important features and details for all serious Windows 10 users.
Individual sales of Office 2019 will start vaguely ‘in a few weeks’ so presumably by mid-October 2018.
A usually reliable source (Amazon) suggest it’ll be sold to consumers from 2 October 2018. See Leaked! Office 2019 consumer release date and prices
Which Products
Office 2019 for Mac will have Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote.
Features
According to Microsoft “Office 2019 includes a meaningful subset of features found in Office 365″. In other words, it has less than the current Office for Mac software sold to Office 365 customers.
There are no cloud-linked features in Office 2019.
Here’s the current feature list from Microsoft, which is not complete, but gives a good idea of what’s in and what’s not in Office 2019
Word
- Focus Mode in Word
- Word Translator
- Improved inking functionality
- Customizable Office ribbons
- Accessibility improvements
Excel
- Funnel charts and 2D maps
- New Excel functions (CONCAT, TEXTJOIN, IFS, SWITCH)
PowerPoint
- Morph transition feature
- Insert and manage Icons, SVG, and 3D models
- Improved roaming pencil case
- 4K video export
- Play in-click sequence in PowerPoint
Outlook
- @mentions
- Focused inbox
- Office 365 Groups in Outlook * Requires Exchange Online account
- Travel and delivery summary cards
- Send Later to delay or schedule delivery of emails
- Read and delivery receipts
- Email templates
Mac OS requirement
Office for Mac is supported on only two versions of the Mac OS; the current version and the previous version.
That means Office 2019 for Mac will be supported on MacOS ‘Mojave’ (coming later in 2018), ‘High Sierra’ (Sept 2017) and perhaps the earlier ‘Sierra’ release.
Support
Office 2019 for Mac gets five years of support. That’s Microsoft’s standard for Mac products.
Will there be future perpetual license Office releases?
The latest Microsoft comment is:
“We remain committed to on-premises customers and plan to do additional releases post Office 2019.”
That’s not a firm commitment to the future of non-cloud Microsoft Office. Only that Redmond ‘plans’ to have future releases. That doesn’t mean they will.
The hard reality is, if there’s enough corporate demand, Microsoft will reluctantly release an ‘Office 2022’ or similar.
From Redmond’s marketing and pricing it’s little secret that Microsoft wants all customers to pay annual ‘subscriptions’ and will drop perpetual license Office if possible.
Running Office 2019 with Office 2016
You cannot install Office 2019 for Mac to run ‘side-by-side’ with Office 2016 or any earlier version of Office for Mac.
More info
The Microsoft Office 2019 FAQ has the official line on Office 2019 using Microsoft’s own brand of corporate speak and weasel words.
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