Old MS Office vs New MS Office

[charlesr]

I'm still rocking Office 2003 on the desktop and Libreoffice on the laptop.

What does Office 2015/16 have that 2003 doesn't? I installed the preview but it seems like all the same stuff! Why would anyone give MS more money for doing nothing for 13 years?

[Mayhem]

I still have Office 2003 on my home laptop too heh.

As someone who uses Office on a daily basis because our team write mobile apps designed to view and edit these files, then you're right. The core foundation of Office on the whole hasn't changed that much. Why would it? It really depends on what you want to do, and in the latest versions, there is a lot more functionality.

- XML file support in the way of DOCX, XLSX and PPTX file formats. You can thus also edit your files online, on the move etc, by just using the online browser editors even provided by Microsoft.
- proper macro file support (DOCM, XLSM, PPTM).
- the ribbon bar, love it or loathe it, can make life easier once you learn how to use it.
- tons more shapes, animations, transitions, effects, text manipulation etc.
- widescreen (16:9) slide support from 2013 onwards, to match widescreen displays.

But if you just want to write a basic letter, do some simple spreadsheeting, and have no need for presenting anything, then Office 2003 will probably still serve you well. Just if you haven't installed it, get the Office 2007 reader plug-in so you can at least open DOCX, XLSX and PPTX type files.

[charlesr]

Yeah got those thanks.

[speedlolita]

I got some dodgy "blue edition" of Office 2007 which has no WGA in it. Seems to do the job for all things!

[randombs]

I'm using Office 2011 Home & Business on my Mac and we use 2010 at work. Converters are fine for basic stuff but presentations and funky Word/Excel files mess up often. I used OpenOffice/NeoOffice/etc but I always ran into formatting issues so gave up.

I got Office 2011 for a tenner through my company so of course I jumped on it. I had to choose between Mac and Windows(one chance per email address) but I'll be able to buy the next version when it's released.

If you know someone whose company is in the Microsoft Home Use Program you could ask them to sort you out. Office 2013 Professional Plus is only a tenner and I believe it comes with a desktop and laptop licence.

[Mayhem]

Mac Office does a few odd things compared to the Windows versions. Handling certain stuff in files is a favourite. We've noted a few peculiar differences over the years. So if we really have to compare, then we use Windows. But Mac Office is good enough 98% of the time.

[randombs]

It's worlds apart from the free ones.

[Anpanman]

I use Access and and Excel particularly heavily, once you get used to the ribbon - both the functionality and sheer size the latest versions are much better.

Excel goes from 65k rows to over a million, formulas from 1k chars to 8k and nested if`s from a paltry 7 to 64. Pivots have now got slicers for added functionality, I could go on and on, the difference over 2003 is massive it really is.

One area where it has regresses is in the linking of data from Excel to Powerpoint for graphs.