Which Microsoft Office Do I Need



  • Do I need Microsoft Office? Posted on February 3, 2017 November 30, 2019 by Jimmy Obomsawin There was a time when you had to pony up the high cost of the Microsoft Office suite in order to effectively exchange documents with others.
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Which Microsoft Office Do I Need

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Microsoft today launched Office for Android and iOS in general availability. The unified app means you no longer need to download, install, and switch between the individual Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps. The company today also announced new features coming to the app this spring: Word Dictation, Excel Cards View, and Outline to PowerPoint. You can download the app now for Android phones and tablets (limited support) from Google Play and for iOS from Apple’s App Store (iPhone-only, iPad support is coming later). You can use Office for free, and if you sign in with a Microsoft Account or connect a third-party storage service you can access and store documents in the cloud.

Get started with Office 365 for free. Students and educators at eligible institutions can sign up for Office 365 Education for free, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and now Microsoft Teams, plus additional classroom tools. Use your valid school email address to get started today. From students to the C-Suite, most people are familiar with Microsoft Office. The suite, first announced by Bill Gates over 30 years ago, included Word, Excel and PowerPoint, or, in other words, The Holy Trinity of software known as Microsoft Office. The year it released, Microsoft became the first company to exceed $1 billion 1 in annual sales. In Q2 2020 Microsoft reported $11 billion 2 in.

Microsoft has over 200 million monthly active Office 365 business users and over 37 million Office 365 consumer subscribers. When the company launched the new Office mobile app as a public preview in November, “tens of thousands of people” rushed to try it. Microsoft has found that most users and businesses want to use the Office app as a hub or starting point for all their document work. “The idea behind the Office app is to give our users a single place from which they can access all their relevant content,” Office product manager Nithya Sampathkumar told VentureBeat. But that’s not the only reason to adopt it — Microsoft’s push to roll out nifty AI features in Office is especially noticeable in this launch.

Between public preview and general availability, the Office app has gained several enhancements. On both Android and iOS, Office now includes templates to help you create new documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, as well as support for third-party cloud storage services Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and iCloud. On iOS, you can now create a Presentation from images and use Dark Mode. On Android, Office gained a bunch of tablet optimizations.

Additive features

The only functionality that the standalone Word, Excel, and PowerPoint mobile apps have that Office doesn’t yet have is optimized tablet support on Android and iOS. Other than that, all the functionality of the existing mobile apps is there. You can thus uninstall the other three apps if you’d like. After all, the Office app does take up less space than the three apps. Additionally, businesses now only need to deploy and update one app. We asked Microsoft 365 general manager Rob Howard if the three will be killed off, and he said no.

“There’s definitely no disruption we want to cause,” Howard said. “There are hundreds of millions of downloads of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as individual apps on Android and iOS. We’re not getting rid of those, killing those, or telling people they need to change their workflow. If people are happy with those and excited about them, we absolutely want them to continue using them.”

We asked Microsoft for a full list of features in the Office app that aren’t available in the individual Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps. If you do choose to install Office, here’s what you can expect.

Home

First, there’s the Home screen, which has the following features:

  • Recommended documents
  • Files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF), media, and notes all in one place
  • Search for files across your organization, cloud storage, and device

The AI-based recommended documents section is pretty powerful because it leverages the Microsoft Graph to serve up relevant suggestions. It takes into consideration which documents you’ve created that others have read or edited, which documents you have read and edited, how long you spent in a document, recency, frequency, sharing, and so on. “It’s taking all of that signal about all the different ways you collaborate and then building recommendations on what’s the content that I’m most likely to be interested in, and then looking at the activity of those documents and prioritizing them using machine learning,” Howard explained.

What Microsoft Office Do I Need For Macbook Air

Best of all, the Office app tries to precache documents so you can open them quickly (or even offline).

New button and Actions

Next, there’s the New button, which includes:

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  • Sticky notes
  • Lens (for digitally enhanced whiteboards, documents, and photos)
  • Scan text — Take a picture of a document and turn it into an editable Word document
  • Scan table — Take a picture of a table and turn it into an editable Excel spreadsheet
  • Choose pictures — Get a jumpstart on a new presentation simply by choosing pictures from your device

Lens is worth calling out because it uses AI to convert images taken with your device’s camera into editable Word and Excel documents. Lens can also scan PDFs, capture whiteboards, and even automatically digitally enhance what was captured. The next three options also leverage AI to help make content creation in Office much more productive on mobile. “Lens is all about connecting the physical world and pulling into the digital word,” Howard said.

Finally, there are Actions, which represent common tasks people encounter on the go:

  • Transfer files — Quickly share files between your phone and computer using a QR code
  • Share nearby (Android only) — Share files to other nearby Android phones with the Office app
  • Sign a PDF
  • Scan to PDF
  • Pictures to PDF
  • Document to PDF
  • Scan QR Code
  • Image to Text
  • Image to Table

Interestingly, almost all of these are mobile-only experiences. Again, Microsoft isn’t just porting over desktop features here.

Word Dictation, Excel Cards, and Outline to PowerPoint

Microsoft also shared what’s next for the Office app. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint help you view documents and maybe even do a little light editing. Office is meant to be for “more sophisticated work.”

“The big focus for us with Office on mobile is to help people not just consume content but also create content,” said Howard. “To help them really be productive on the phone.”

Which Microsoft Office Do I Need For My Home

Microsoft plans to ship the next three features this spring.

Word Dictation will do exactly what you’d expect — it will use AI to turn your voice into written text. But that’s not all — you will be able to use voice commands (such as “numbered list” or “new line”) while still having access to toolbars and formatting options as you dictate.

Excel Cards View converts table rows to a more digestible card format so you do not have swipe back and forth across columns on your screen. It’s essentially an easier way to view and edit the data in an Excel row on mobile.

Outline to PowerPoint lets you write your presentation content as a simple outline. PowerPoint Designer, the AI-powered service that offers presentation suggestions, will then turn it into slides using styling, formatting, and iconography.

Beyond Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

These features will be coming to the new Office app first and will show up in the individual Word, Excel, and PowerPoint soon after. Howard explained that while the codebase is the same for all these apps, the testing they go through is different, resulting in a lag between the same feature landing in different apps.

Microsoft is also exploring whether to build more apps into the Office app, such as OneNote. “We are looking at ‘How do we add more capabilities?'” Sampathkumar said. “Users do tell us, ‘We see this as a content hub. We want to see OneNote here.’ We are looking at how we can add it while still keeping the size small. We don’t want the size of the app to bloat up. Because for users who do not use OneNote, they don’t want a bloated app.”

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If you are thinking of buying a new Dell PC or upgrading the software in your current one, you might want to know what all options you've got. Microsoft Office is one of the most extensively-used office suites provided by Microsoft. There are many versions available which come with useful applications. But before you finalize on your selection, have a look at the steps given below.

Steps to choose Microsoft Office for your PC


Step 1: Examine your needs. Are you a home user or a business user?
Do you require Microsoft Office for single or multiple devices?
Step 2: List out the features you require.
What all do you wish to do with your Office suite?
Step 3: Weigh all options.
Compare the available choices and narrow down your selection.

Which version of Microsoft Office should I buy?


The new Office productivity software combines the latest Office applications with offerings like Skype world minutes and OneDrive online storage. In addition, Microsoft now offers subscription versions of Office for home and school, designed for the way you use Office today.
When you’re deciding which version of Office to buy, consider how many computers or mobile devices you’d like to use the applications on and which applications you need.
Multiple devices and all Office applications
  • If your home has multiple devices and you want all the applications, choose the Office 365 subscription, which can be shared across 5 PCs, Macs and mobile devices. That way you can switch between devices and pick up right where you left off.
1 PC and essential Office applications
  • If you want the latest versions of the essential Office applications for one PC, choose Office Home and Student 2016.
  • If you want the latest versions of the essential Office applications for one PC, including Outlook to keep your home and work life organized, choose Office Home and Business 2016.
Note: Office Home and Student 2016 is for noncommercial use only. Office Home and Business 2016 is ideal for commercial use.

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Microsoft Office suite vs Office 365 Home Premium: What should I choose?

Which Microsoft Office Do I Need For Home


Office Home
& Student 2016
Office Home & Business
2016
Professional 2016Office 365 Home
For households with students sharing one PCFor households and home offices sharing one PCFor home office sharing one PC and Business Office sharing one PCOffice for families.
Get installed applications on multiple devices, online storage, and more
Licenses
Core Office applications:
Word, Excel, PowerPoint.
Digital notebook:
OneNote
Email, calendars and tasks:
Outlook.
Publishing and databases:
Publisher, Access.
Office on multiple devices:
Install Office on up to 5 PCs or Macs and on select mobile devices when available
Personalized experience:
Always have your applications, settings and documents accessible when you need them.
Office on Demand:
Stream full-featured Office applicationns to any internet-connected PC with Office on Demand
OneDrive® + 1TB storage:
Save documents online to your OneDrive for easy access and sharing virtually anywhere.
Easy annual subscription:
Includes ongoing access to version upgrades, multiple device installs and access to multiple languages.

Which Version Of Microsoft Office Do I Need

What’s new in Office 2016?


With the latest Office, your favorite applications are even smarter.
Word
Add pictures, videos, or online media to your Word documents with a simple drag and drop.
Show your style and professionalism with templates, plus save time. Browse Word templates in more than 40 categories.
Excel
Recommended Charts helps you visualize data quickly and effectively in Excel.
In Excel 2013 each workbook has its own window, making it easier to work on two workbooks at once. It also makes life easier when you’re working on two monitors.
PowerPoint
Reply to comments right next to the area you're discussing, so it's easy to see who's commenting about what in PowerPoint.
No more eyeballing objects on your slides to see if they're lined up. Smart Guides automatically appear when your objects are close to even, and tell you when objects are spaced evenly.
Outlook
See your Outlook schedule, an appointment, or details about a contact without changing screens.
The People Card collects all the key details about a contact in one place: phone, email, address, social media, and more. From the card, schedule a meeting, send an instant message, or call – a one-stop-shop for all communication.
OneNote
OneNote lets you capture, organize, and share all types of information — photos, web pages, and media–in a digital notebook that can be accessed virtually anywhere.
Smoothly draw, erase, and edit with your finger, stylus, or mouse on any touch-capable device. If you need to share handwritten notes and care about legibility, OneNote can convert handwriting to text.
Publisher
Publisher is the simple path to professional publications that make an impact.
Use Publisher to search your online albums on Facebook, Flickr and other services and add pictures directly to the document, without having to save them first.
Access
Access lets you build a database fast to organize data, accessible anywhere online.
Never again get 'lost in the data.' A standardized app framework makes navigating apps familiar and easy.
OneDrive
With Office 365, you get an extra 1 Terabyte of online storage per user so you can access your photos and documents from anywhere, on most devices.
Skype
With Office 365, get 60 Skype world minutes per month to call phones in over 60 countries*.

Why use Office 365?


Office 365 is a best-in-class productivity solution that allows your employees to work how they want with trusted applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook on all their favorite devices (Windows, iOS and Android).Best
Install full Office applications
Always have the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access and capture your ideas however you work best--using a keyboard, pen, or touchscreen.
Word
Word-processing application—create polished documents with Word. Do more with your Word docs: pop in an online video, open a PDF and edit the content and align pictures and diagrams with minimal fuss.
Excel
Spreadsheet and charting application—sort and analyze your data with Excel. Flash Fill learns and recognizes your pattern and auto-completes the remaining data for you. Excel recommend chart and pivot tables that best illustrate your data's patterns.
PowerPoint
Presentation application—build and present your story with PowerPoint. New alignment, color-matching, and other design tools help you create stunning presentations. No more eyeballing pictures, shapes, and more on your slides to see if they're lined up with Smart Guides. Improved Presenter View features let you control the presentation.
Outlook
Email, calendar, people and tasks application—work smarter with tools that help you communicate, manage your schedule, and find what you need—simply and fast. The People Card collects all the key details about a contact in one place: phone, email, address, company info, social media updates, even whether they're available. From the card, you can schedule a meeting, send an instant message, or give them a call, making it a one-stop-shop for all communication.
OneNote
Digital note-taking application—all your notes, on all your devices, always up to date. Type, handwrite, or sketch your notes. Clip links and webpages, insert photos and videos, embed tables, and attach files. Your notes are saved, searchable, and synced to OneNote apps on your other devices. For Mac users, OneNote is available as a separate download from the Mac App Store.
Publisher
Page layout application—easily create great looking publications in very little time. Start with an assortment of templates or prebuilt building blocks of content. Choose from newsletters, brochures, postcards, brochures, calendars and more. Work with pictures more easily to add that eye-popping touch to your publications. Publisher is available for PC only.
Access
Database application—easily build a database app in Access and then use and share your app on the web. Access is available for PC only.