Microsoft Office 2016 for Home & Student

[#1]

I want to buy MS Office 2016 for use by my grand-daughter. Do I have to use Office 365 also? If I have understood Office 365 correctly, it uses the cloud which you have to keep on paying for, whereas the older versions of MS Office, and the data files they produce, are stored on the pc so are independent of external storage.

Thanks for any help

[#2]

Im still using microsoft office 2007

[#3]

You don't need to use the cloud for storage with either Office 2016 or 365, you can store the files locally.

This should explain the differences

What's the difference between Office 365 plans and Office 2016 suites?

Office 365 plans include the complete suite of Office applications, plus other services that are enabled over the Internet, including extra cloud storage with OneDrive and Skype minutes for home use. With Office 365 you get the full, installed Office experience on PCs, Macs, tablets (including Windows, iPad, and Android) and smartphones. Office 365 plans are available as a monthly or annual subscription. With Office 365, upgrades are always included with your subscription.

Office 2016 suites, including Office Home & Student and Home & Business, include applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote; they are available as a one-time purchase for use on a single PC or Mac. The applications are not automatically updated; to get the latest version, you must purchase Office again when the new version becomes available.

[#4]

Depending on how old your granddaughter is, and whether she is in education it might be a better deal to give her the money and have her buy the software.

If she is at University or college she would be eligible for the four years for £60 Office 365 deal that MS offer to staff and students at tertiary education institutions. The usual qualification rule (in the UK ) is an xxx.ac.uk e-mail address.

It is also possible that she could be eligible to get it for free if her University or college has done a deal with MS.

[#5]

So am I, but I don't have to be able to work with whatever my grand-daughter's school uses (assuming using something different might cause a problem)

Cheers

[#6]

Thanks Browni. I was worried about getting an ongoing bill with no end in sight.

[#7]

Unfortunately, she is still at secondary school (Year 8).

[#8]

Sorry Wisty, my reply to you got emoticoned. It seems using the figure eight followed by ) gets the pair converted.

[#9]

Have you considered installing 'LibreOffice' on your granddaughter's PC ?.

'LibreOffice' is FREE to download and use, and is actively maintained and constantly improving.

It can read and write the majority of Microsoft Office files, and file formats from other office suites.

My children went through secondary school just using 'LibreOffice' at home, without any compatibility problems with Microsoft files.

[#10]

Thanks Nibiru. I will suggest this to her

[#11]

Mine used Libre also.

The teachers are very keen on pictures, so clipart and a colour printer are deemed to be a "good thing".

[#12]

Office 2016 you buy; Office 365 you rent.

Office 2016 Home and Student comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint (and Onenote).  Office 365 comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access (and Onenote).

With Office 365 you get 1TB of cloud storage. 

[#13]

@penneck I will "second" the use of Libre Office... or "open office".. ( same thing different name )..

Good "suite" of apps included,... all for free... and you could always buy a USB stick, with ( say) 64 GB of storage, put Libre office on it, and then she has it "portable" so she can use at home or school... and keep all her work safe at the same time....

[#14]

And she could access her files in Linux, Mac or Windows.

[#15]

Thanks shutter. I have installed LibreOffice on my pc, and tried it (the Word and Excel equivalents, that is). They look good, and have saved my test files in Microsoft Office 2013 format so they are .docx and .xlsx types. The problem for me is dealing with different names or symbols for the same things in Word or Excel, but I guess that is just a case of learning what LibreOffice calls them.

However, the next test comes tomorrow when my grand-daughter is visiting here, so I will show her what it looks like. If she is happy about it, I will then install LO on her laptop, and we will try it again

Cheers