
- #Microsoft office 2013 professional upgrade upgrade#
- #Microsoft office 2013 professional upgrade software#
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#Microsoft office 2013 professional upgrade upgrade#
This is one upgrade most of us can afford to skip. Not for the $140 price tag (for Office 2013's most basic version) or $100 a year subscription fee (for Office 365) that Microsoft is charging. We all use word processors and spreadsheets in our day-to-day lives, but most of us don't need all the rich formatting options, plug-ins and cloud services that Office 2013 and Office 365 provide. An existing copy of Microsoft Office - even one that's years out of date - will also get the job done.
#Microsoft office 2013 professional upgrade software#
For small businesses, the free software upgrades and simplicity of having all users on a standard, shared apps suite make Office 365 an appealing option.īut for the person who doesn't need cloud support and just wants to print up a garage sale flier, or share a spreadsheet for managing the family finances, online services like the very good (and very free) Google Docs work just fine. Some students and professionals actually need all the bells and whistles. All the core aspects function as advertised, and there's no major product flaw or shortcoming that should stop anyone from using the software.īut there's a larger question here about who Microsoft Office 2013 and Office 365 are really for. Should you buy it? Office 2013 and Office 365 are a clear improvement over previous iterations. Right now it's simply too laggy to use for any extended period without wanting to pull your hair out. This is strictly for emergencies, though. Go to Microsoft's Office website, launch Office 365, and a little applet acts as a terminal between you and an Office version running on Microsoft's servers. Office 365 also offers a new feature called "Office on Demand" that lets you tap into Office even if you're working on a machine that doesn't have it installed. That minimizes distractions, but when you're working with collaborators, real-time updates are far more efficient. Collaborative document editing, for example, doesn't pop up on screen in real-time as it does with Google Docs changes only reveal themselves when you save or refresh. It's an experience that's mostly seamless - but with room for improvement. If you're working on a spreadsheet with someone else, a little "refresh" graphic pops up over the save icon to let you know that changes have been made. When you want to save a Word document to the cloud, the menu prompt sits right beside the option to save locally. Related story: Microsoft wants you to pay $100 a year for Office Its features are integrated straight into the same software that non-365 users have. The beauty of Office 365 is that it isn't a completely separate piece of software. In a nutshell, it turns Office into an Internet-connected app, allowing you save documents in the cloud, collaborate with others, receive regular software updates, and use a remote version of Office from any computer if you're in a pinch. Office anywhere: The main functional improvements in Office 2013 come through Microsoft's new "Office 365" subscription service, which costs $100 per year. The software has a more minimal look, but the lack of strong visual separation between panes and buttons makes everything feel incohesive and jumbled. Microsoft took a stab at a revamp, but the result is just as cluttered and busy as ever. One area where design seems to have gotten away from Microsoft is Outlook. Office 2013 is still best experienced with a physical keyboard and mouse.

That said, this isn't a touchscreen revolution. It works very well in some places, like highlighting cells in Excel or editing PowerPoint slides. Everything is a little more spaced out, which makes it easier to edit with your fingers. Microsoft's attempt to make Office 2013 touch-friendly involved minor tinkering. That's an exception, though: Most of the changes streamline the Office experience.

There are a few places where the new design seems like a hindrance, like the "File" drop-down menu that takes you to a whole new screen. The texture-free graphics and stark contrast between colors makes it easier to navigate through the various interfaces of Office's different apps.
