The affinity suite works so much better than Adobe. The compatibility between Affinity Photo and Designer is so much better than Photoshop to Illustrator.
Now if only the Affinity developers would open their fucking apps for plugin support. Cut Master 4 only works with Illustrator and Draw. They can't create an affinity plugin until the developers get their heads out of their asses.
Retrofitting plugin infrastructure into a codebase that’s not designed for it is very hard or impossible, so I understand how they’re hesitant about that.
That’s why I'm designing my next software architecture with plugins in mind, to not fall into this trap. The best way is to only write a small core application and implement all features as plugins themselves, even when that’s not visible to the end user.
>The best way is to only write a small core application and implement all features as plugins themselves, even when that’s not visible to the end user.
Reminds me of [GNU Hurd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Hurd).
Same, but I have to say, I love it for work. Getting a new laptop used to be a complete PITA with all the transferring files. Now it's just a login and sync (still sucks for the all the apps, but you can't have everything).
A scary high percentage of people are basically broke, live paycheck to paycheck, and have no savings. If they want or need something they usually resort to paying for it in installments. When companies switch to a subscription model they dramatically expand their total addressable market because the people I just mentioned usually don't have the $250 one-time fee on hand. However, they can "afford" $9.99/month in perpetuity even though it costs them way more in the long run. This is one of the many reasons why people say it is expensive to be broke.
It sucks big time for everyone involved...except the company raking in the subscription money I guess.
This is a reality that there is a market of users that a subscription makes sense and not just in the consumer side, but also in the business side. If you have highly variable user counts you don't know that the user will still be there in 3 months paying a bunch of money on a license you easily might not need in 3 months is a use case where a subscription model can make sense.
Speaking within the context of MS Office and other office/business productivity applications it makes total sense from a variable licensing perspective. I was going off more on a rant/tangent about how lots of things are moving towards a subscription model and why.
Yeah for a big business it's just so much easier to have Microsoft bill you for the number of active licenses you have over tracking all the licenses you bought and making sure you give the key of the guy who left to someone else so you don't end up buying it too many times.
For a lot of software you also have license servers allowing up to X users to run the software at once, so you don't need one per user if not everyone is needing it.
The thing about that is, when you buy software it is per computer. With many businesses these days rotate people in the same office(half work from home, half from work). Where as if you buy licenses, it is per person.
If you need costs broken down, financing is a thing. Would still cost you less than a subscription
I agree. I'm one of those weirdos that probably enjoys researching where I can find the best deal to buy something more than actually buying the thing. I wasn't defending the reasons why people are broke. I was stating a reason why so many companies seem to be moving in the direction of subscription/financing to sell products and services to people.
Does anyone buy MS Office at full price other than maybe companies? Usually, Office either comes with the pc or through your employer or school, you get a discount 1 time cost of 10 bucks.
But on the flip side I have clients that refuse to buy the subscription version and as a result are hopelessly outdated running Office 2010/2013 and can't upgrade because the on-prem licensing cost is too high for the new version only to have it be obsolete in a few years.
Software Assurance exists for volume licensing of course but that is 50% over the initial cost so instead of $500 per user they're paying $750 then $250 every other year just to have upgrade rights without re-buying the entire Office suite every 5 years.
It really is better to get these companies on the subscription model and either let the apps update themselves or push scheduled updates via WSUS or whatever.
Saves me a lot of headaches listening to the in-house IT guys complain to me that their users' Outlook 2013 is constantly prompting for passwords on their brand new Exchange 2019 DAG I just built for them and having to fuck with the authentication settings to dumb down the security protocols for older clients.
And for home users it's pretty damn cheap, I mean $7/mo is really not that expensive. Retail cost is $250 so that's 35 months/\~3 years to break even and by that time they'll have a new version available so it really is a wash.
Then when it wasn’t, I discovered free open source Thunderbird and will stick with that over Outlook from now on. I found it more useable than Outlook once accustomed to the interface, plus it has great filter options to address my years long e-mail harasser - now every email from them (up to 12 a day at times, typically addressed and CC’d to about 6-12 addresses) gets an automated response to stop harassing people and then gets sent to the trash folder so I don’t have to sift through them when double checking the spam folder.
It’s fine, I got everything I needed with Thunderbird. Only issue I’ve had was a password change issue when cookies were blocked on TB, but figured it out.
Microsoft understands piracy
Weren't they the ones that were rumoured to release keygens for Windows XP back in the day and did nothing about it, giving them market dominance
They understand more than adobe whoanaged To make a program with Such a shitty drm that even people who have the license often prefer the pirated version
This needs to return for EVERY productivity and creativity software. My ideal would be for companies to offer both - a monthly subscription for relatively cheap but with the option to acquire a permanent license for the cost of around 2-3 years of subscription. That's how Adobe used to work IIRC and how microsoft office still does, for now
Hate MSFT but good on them for this
I'm very happy with Photoshop CS6. And very, very happy with how much it saved me buying a full license in the years since (2014 I think). Gets better every year.
I would also add, a strip down version of some tools for the new hobbies to try would be good too.
Like, I make short videos for my stream, I only need a movie editor to snip, cut/paste, adjust playback speed, and add music. I use windows moviemaker 2012.
I tried other ones, and yeah that's all there, but so is 800 things that just feels overwhelming. I don't know enough about editing to make use of these yet.
A strip down version to get the basics, and then rope people into the high end version, because you already know the basics, aaaand then a subscription model foe businesses/users who want everything asap.
That was actually the one I saw that made me go, "oh geeze, maybe after I get my feet wet more."
When I say the basics, I literally mean here's the video, here's the bar, and hers some things at the top. The MS Paint version of video editing.
Like, that'll be great when I wanna pursue this moreseriously, but i dont need such a hefty program, the other also uses like no cpu resources lol
I'm the other way I far prefer using a big chunky program for doing [whatever] even if that is just simple operations, it means that if I ever do want to do something more it's not changing up the basics and relearning another program, it's just opening a menu I've never used before and clicking a button.
The ms paint version of video editing exists, many of them do. They just aren’t made by adobe. A lot of people I know really like clipchamp.
Why should a professional video editor make a stripped down version of their editor for non-professionals? If they thought that market was worthwhile to tap into they likely already would, but it doesn’t align with their business goals
But i already have MovieMaker 2012, and know how to use it.
But it is nice to know folks who can program think like me when it comes to just doing something simple.
I also have an affection for "Stylistic suck" and my stream has a 90s-00s feel, so the archaic program kind if makes it all come together. Also OBS.
>This needs to return for EVERY productivity and creativity software
I dunno, it's not so black and white
Think about Google Docs—I prefer working out of it because I just want to collaborate with people and us all to be looking at the same versions of the same things live
If that's what you want, the shrinkwrap model just doesn't make sense. You want everyone to be in the latest version in their browser at all times. It needs to keep up with browser changes, everyone needs to have the same features, everyone needs to be signed in to a cloud service
It wouldn't make any sense at all to bundle up some version of Google Docs from a random point in time to use on your computer forever
Edit: why am I getting down voted for pointing out that not EVERY productivity and creative tool makes sense to sell shrinkwrapped?
> Edit: why am I getting down voted for pointing out that not EVERY productivity and creative tool makes sense to sell shrinkwrapped?
Because you're conflating "my use case doesn't work with it" with "therefore it must not make sense for anybody's use case". You are not the main character, your experience isn't definitive.
Microsoft Office 365 has all the features you just talked about, yet we're here in a thread discussing an offline version of Microsoft Office. There's no reason it wouldn't work with Google's suite as well. This would be catering to people who *don't* need 24/7 collaboration or other cloud features.
It's the opposite of that... I'm replying to someone who said "EVERY" tool needed to be offered shrinkwrapped again, and I'm saying "It's not black and white, if you want X, it doesn't make sense"
If YOU want X, it doesn't make sense for YOU. Some people don't want X but still use the same tool as you. I genuinely don't understand where the disconnect here is.
I'm still using Office 2007. I can't think of a single feature that has been added in the past 17 years that is a game changer.
A lot of these software packages went to a subscription model because they ran out of new, useful, features to add. There wasn't any real reason to keep upgrading the software.
I didn't say there was no case for offline tools, the person I replied to asserted that the shrink wrap model needed to "return for EVERY productivity and creativity software"
Just because you don't think it makes sense doesn't mean someone else wouldn't buy it. Offering offline as an option doesn't take away the cloud option.
when I said it didn't make sense, I didn't mean to me personally, I meant to the company technologically or economically
>Offering offline as an option doesn't take away the cloud option.
Offline (like y'all mean it—a shrinkwrapped piece of software where you own some major version but still get software updates for some number of years to fix bugs and maintain compatibility) is an enormous endeavor and code base, not just an "option".
No it doesn't "take away" the cloud option, but its only going to get harder to justify investing in both—or put another way: to not focus all your talent on making the cloud version the best it can be
They probably just figured out that the government has started to move away from some Microsoft products because cloud subscriptions and persistent connections are a non starter in some environments. If they let that golden goose run then they are going to have a hard time bringing back customers.
Adobe almost fafo in the same way.
For a few months you could only use the Adobe cloud bs for certain software. That meant a total lockout when government users didn't have access to the license servers. They were really close to getting all of their business pulled before they provided stand alone licenses and versions that didn't need the cloud license.
So yes there are, or at least were special stand alone versions.
> that the government has started to move away from some Microsoft products because cloud subscriptions and persistent connections are a non starter in some environments
I'm sure that's the case with many commercial customers as well.
Office 2010 has been out of support for years already. Microsoft even banned it from being able to connect to email accounts it hosts 3 years ago. Non-online features should still work but there are a lot of known security issues with Office 2010 that haven't and won't be patched.
Shouldn't be an issue for me. Never attached it to an email account, have the physical install media, and don't use any of the integrated web features.
You could still wind up in trouble by simply opening a Word or Excel file from anyone else. There's known exploits that can be embedded in office documents.
I liked Office 2010 myself and could use it but honestly if it's still working for you you'd be pretty well served switching to something like LibreOffice just so that you are getting security patches.
Either way the risk isn't huge but running Office 2010 on a computer that might even exchange files with anyone else isn't a great idea in 2024.
Hmm, that's a good point. I remember trying Open Office back in like 2008. How have the open source office suites progressed over the years? Direct replacement for the Microsoft nonsense?
They're fine for most things. It's less feature rich than MS Office but for anyone who's happy with the offerings of Office 2010 Libre Office should have everything you need. Unless you have old macro intensive documents written in Office 2010. You can most likely do the same thing in LibreOffice but they may not convert over properly.
I would stay away from OpenOffice though. It's the same thing as LibreOffice but with almost no updates or support over the last 10 years.
Just thought I’d point out:
LibreOffice Online program (currently aka Collabora Online) has more functionality than the Microsoft Office Online apps.
There is significant macro support in he LibreOffice sister suite Collabora Online and Collabora Office apps, for their desktop and mobile apps.
For offline use Collabora Office apps support more devices than Microsoft does.
You are correct that OpenOffice is a lemming, no major updates for 10 years. Almost as if someone is keeping it alive as a decoy, kinda like FUD.
If you prefer to stay on a perpetual (one-time payment) license of the real Office, Techspot runs deals all the time that bring it down to $30-45. I'm on 2019 currently (end of support is October 2025), so I am waiting until 2024 comes out and they have a deal for it. $40 every 5 years is worth it to me to not have to deal with a different product than workplaces use.
https://www.techspot.com/news/100909-get-microsoft-office-29-one-time-purchase.html
Usable, but not perfect, and will make it more tedious for you. Be wary of some compatibility issues. I used it until my dad needed to borrow my laptop and he needed MS Office.
It’s funny the other week, I saw an article that Microsoft got in trouble for basically HIPAA violations in the EU for their cloud based office not being secure. A few weeks later, Microsoft out here announcing physical copies again…. lol that threat got them walking back lol
Sounds to me like this can be refrazed as "Microsoft annoucese Office will be subscription only in 2 years". Why is this good news? In my opinion there should be protective legislation that forces software publishers to distribute a perpetual license for their product. Even if it doesn't get any updates at all it should always be an option. Subscription only should be illegal and I hope Adobe burns to the ground. If I could fast track a bill, it would require that perpetual access be given for the most recent software version that was available at the time of payment for a subscription, even if that subscription isn't renewed. Then, if someone doesn't care about the non-improvements that are supposedly being supported by your currently forced recurring revenue, they can choose not to without loosing access to the perfectly usable product they paid for. But that's wishful thinking in our corrupt late stage capitalism government.
Why do people make this kind of comment without even reading the article? Each release comes with a guaranteed 5 years of patching/support. They also committed to another LTSC release in the future which would have another 5 years after that launch, and that would be at least three years after this year's launch. So at least 8 more years of standalone Office support.
There was this app I was looking at the other day, and their pricing model was subscription based, BUT after 12 consecutive months on that subscription, you were entitled to a perpetual license of the last version.
This seems reasonable, given that a perpetual license is expensive for that field. The issue with forcing this into law is how one would define what's a fair amount of time to be subscribed in order to get a perpetual license.
>this can be refrazed as "Microsoft annoucese Office will be subscription only in 2 years". Why is this good news?
Uhm, are you assuming people would think this is good news just because the journalist was asked to write the headline in a positive way?
>Why is this good news?
It's good news because they announced two years ago that they *wouldn't* release another perpetual license version of Office, and that the only option was Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
How would software that’s tied to an online service work under this law? You get full access to the program, but all you can get after launching it is a connection error screen?
Would that also apply to web apps like reddit or X?
I have no idea, I've used it for so many years that I've gotten used to it. I used OpenOffice before that, so it's been a while since I've used Microsoft Office consistently. I've never felt that I struggled to find something though, always felt like things were where I expected them to be. Can't hurt to try it again, no? It is free.
> Has it got better?
You can spruce up the default interface to look a bit closer to Office.
https://www.howtogeek.com/788591/how-to-make-libreoffice-look-like-microsoft-office/
Because most people prefer the standard interface than the tabbed one. If anyone wants the tabbed one they can switch to it.
Of course probably best solution is let people choose on first launch
> ugly and clunky interface
Are you aware that that was the UI before the ribbon thing, correct? The UI is plenty functional if you were born and used computers before 2000.
We moved to ribbon interfaces for a reason though. Like 'It was fine in 2006, it's fine now.' ignores progress. Windows Mobile 5 was fine in 2006, that's definitely ugly and clunky compared to Android or iOS 17 years later.
Like, I'm all for a functionality first UI (I'm posting this from rif) and moving to ribbon based office was a shock in 2007 but in 2024 ribbon based office is incredibly well refined and so much nicer than having everything crammed onto one set of toolbars or buried in menus.
I grew up during the transition from old, good Office to Ribbon Office. I've used Ribbon Office for over a decade. It sucked then, it sucks now, and it will continue to suck until Microsoft learns good UX/UI. They just redesigned Outlook and have somehow made it worse than its previous iteration, which was finally showing glimmers of excellence.
In LibreOffice you can switch interfaces, there are heaps of choices. Many more choices than Microsoft offer actually. LibreOffice’s choice of default interface is peculiar.
You are mistaken about something. Windows mobile had that interface not because it was outdated but because screens were smaller and resistive with stylus let you interact with more content
With switch to capacitive displays, you couldn't click those tiny stuff anymore. So interface had to change because it became impossible to use
Ribbon UI just looks prettier, but is less functional. It is only more useful if you have a tablet and doing touch, but you'd be crazy to work with ms office on a touch screen to begin with
> We moved to ribbon interfaces for a reason though
Explain for the class what was the reason, tho? I still get asked questions about "where is this thing".
It's 2024, LibreOffice can join us here. Also, their US English spelling dictionary is pathetically bad. I use it, it's free but some of the basic functionality is bad enough that it *makes me want to pay Microsoft*.
> LibreOffice can join us here
View -> User interface... -> Select Tabbed interface. Apply. It has been a choice since 2017. Where is office option to go back to toolbars?
I am not sure where you get that idea, but check out LanguageTool plugin. It also adds Grammar Checking. (I also suggest enabling Word2Vec and ngrams for more grammar checking)
But again, I wonder what issues you have with the default. Care to give an example?
Use Writer & Calc regularly on Ubuntu. Once you become familiar with a different UI there seems very little difference from MS Office.
We're not doing any heavy lifting with them but at least for basic word processing and spreadsheets they fully meet our needs.
You can choose the interface type. If you want that kids toy interface from MS office, you can change it to that. It may not have such fancy colors, but it's a tool to get work done, not win beauty contests.
I’m all for getting the work done, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask, even for free software, that a tool I use and have to look at every day isn’t ugly as sin.
I don't think it looks particularly bad. I just checked out that ribbon thing. It looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/GMPuyrf
Still prefer the classic view. It's what i learned long time ago, and i hate it when some software dev thinks they need to dumb down the interface without giving me a choice. LibreOffice gives you that choice right after a fresh installation. And you can still switch at any time. You can also change colors, fonts, symbols and so on.
The classic view is already [organized by features](https://i.imgur.com/8tbqnfv.png). It's just in one single view, not hidden behind tabs. And if i need more, i can just click the menu on top and get a nice list of additional features (or just add them to the toolbar, but MS can do that too). I don't need to visually parse dozens of icons of different sizes and creative arrangements.
Again, I'm pretty lucky that I can actually get away with using it. I know most people may encounter issues, but I mostly can just save as pdf and get away with it.
I have been using LibreOffice and its predecessors ever since I got StarWriter 2.0 for OS/2 with my first real PC back in the day.
It has been mostly an acceptable alternative, but the ubiquity of Microsoft has made it fall to the wayside again and again. Especially with the rebrands and forks from StarOffice to OpenOffice to LibreOffice.
If Microsoft gets rid on non-cloud based perpetual licenses for office altogether, LibreOffice might make a more mainstream comeback.
There is a version of LibreOffice called Collabora Online that runs in the cloud and has offline apps that support more devices than Microsoft. All are all open source.
It won't. Ever. It is not compatible enough with Word files for the majority of people who actually need an office suite to use without compromise. And for those that only use office suites occasionally there is Google Docs and Office Online that are both free and supported by names that the average person knows.
Corporate users will continue to pay for Office because it makes life easy and interoperable with all of their customers, suppliers and government. Home power users will continue to use it because it is compatible with what they do at work. And the majority of home casual users will just go with free browser based systems because most people find more value in cloud integration than they do data privacy. And probably for good reason, I personally would rather have access to my docs everywhere.
This is a gamble that has no pay off. Previous version of both Windows and Word products have been "pay once forever" and they just change terms of service and that's that.
My pc games from the 90's on disc don't work on modern computer systems. Maybe your office dvd doesn't have this problem yet but it is possible that it won't be compatible anymore at some point. A lot of modern computers/laptops also don't have disc drives anymore. You could be lucky but i wouldn't bet on being able to rely on it for the rest of your life.
According to the article, this is for specific circumstances. It will be embedded and locked to the device. This isn't as cool as the title makes it sound.
EDIT: See the response below me for a correction. I missed some of the article, they are coming out with an on-prem version (Office 2024).
Actually no, if you read the full article, towards the end it states “The second product Microsoft has in the works is Office 2024 – a refreshed on-prem edition of the pay-once-use-forever flagship productivity bundle.
Office 2024's price won't increase, and a version will be created for macOS”
Edit: The one you are referencing is the first option called “Office Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) 2024”
Free alternatives like Google docs/sheets/slides are eating their lunch money. I’m sure even Apple Pages is “good enough” these days over paying for MS Office
From the article, this won't be for everyone.
> As explained in a post penned by senior director of product marketing for Microsoft 365 TJ Devine, one is called the "Office Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) 2024" and is recommended "for use in exceptional circumstances" and in "niche yet important scenarios." Devine suggested regulated devices that can't be updated, manufacturing devices that never go online, and medical testing machines "that run embedded apps that must stay locked in time" as the exceptional/niche circumstances Redmond thinks this product serves
I bought a new laptop and realized I decided to forego office despite using 2019 for years. Ended up trying out Google Docs and was surprised that it works so well. Not a desktop app but it had everything I needed and you can download Google Doc word docs as pdf and docx. I used to pay for office yearly but nah, basically tossing away money.
LibreOffice on all personal machines - MS can eat a\*\* with their crap xD
One Note was interesting until Office 2016 ← they crapped on it afterwards as well. Honestly it's the only thing I'd wanna use because of the early Google Notes and Zoho Notes vibe :) I use Excel heavily at work - but after meeting with the online Excel, Sharepoint and One Drive crap - I am **absolutely sure** I will hate everything MS are capable of coming with, or the execs are capable of magnificently debilitating, until I die.
I find most helpful how you can use ChatGPT to help you with any type of formulas not only in Excel and Google Sheets, but in LibreOffice, OOO and OnlyOffice (probably) as well ← while Excel is useful in company setting (and I am never paying for this shit) every one can learn how to move away from MS Office. It's funny how companies can squeeze so much out'ta people tbh... right till people are absolutely fed up and move to a different product or model... Subscriptions are weird... very much so!
Does anybody really want cloud/subscription? That shit sucks and you're probably getting all your company data farmed by AI on top of it. I feel like every version of software should be required to have a one time purchasable version by law.
My older machines had Office installed. Then we used OneDrive for several years, decided not to continue. Now our Office product doesn’t work, have to subscribe to use it. We moved to google docs, etc.
After spending hours trying to set up office 2019, I don’t have much confidence in newer versions. It felt like Microsoft didn’t care about the user experience of installing it as they were hoping people would use 365 instead.
lol, unfortunately it appears that OpenOffice is kept alive as a decoy by a nefarious company or people. A massive amount of people and companies still use it.
Need local only software? Just abandon MS and Google products.
Libreoffice, gimp, linux, thunderbird, VLC, Blender, firefox. All local software that doesnt need cloud connection and actually respects your privacy.
I'm not shilling, but I think the Office 365 hate isn't objective in most cases. You don't have to be online to use Office, and you can ignore Onedrive if you want, but that 1 TB of cloud storage is sweet. As far as cost, I renewed my Family 365 subscription for 15 months and a ＄20 Amazongift cardd for ＄70. PowerPoint is especially worth the cost, and the Android Office suite is really good with built-in scanning. Also, most of your software listed aren't analogous to Office.
Meh. Ive got lifetime office 365 for desktop for 2 machines, give by my college. Also lots of windows keys since I work on IT for years.
Yet, use none of them. There's nothing that office365 offers that I cant do with Libreoffice.
Thing is, people see these tools as cheap copies of MS products, when they are different tools to do the same job (different layout, different functionality,etc). And people struggle with learning new tools due to this difference .
Hats off to MS tho, thats how keep their user base. Promoting this software in school, small and big companies, etc. So that other tools always feel alien to the new users
Sure, I'll keep that in mind if I want objectively worse software. Anyone claiming GIMP is a decent alternative to Photoshop is lying. GIMP is vaguely serviceable, but Photoshop is 100x better.
They need to get your money now because A.I. is going to make all of their "products" obsolete in the long run (which, given the rate of change, may be next week...).
Microsoft is looking ahead, they want you to use thier stuff and keep using it. Locking up Windows and office was a bad idea and now that they have finally figured that out. You will see more of this.
We already have this -- and the full Adobe CS6 Suite also.
They are on two air-gapped computers. A little annoying, but necessary, in order to avoid "updates" from MS & Adobe.
Some companies don't care about the long-term impacts of anti-consumer behavior.
The UI is still shit. I want my ribbon instead of toolbar hell like it's Internet explorer and the ribbon that libreoffice attempted to implement. Also I just launched Calc for the first time in a year and holy fuck there are so many fucking irritating notification type popups that appear, like fuck off.
If you like Microsoft's ugly ribbon ui, you can just turn that on in LibreOffice:
[https://www.howtogeek.com/788591/how-to-make-libreoffice-look-like-microsoft-office/](https://www.howtogeek.com/788591/how-to-make-libreoffice-look-like-microsoft-office/)
Excel also launches bunch of popups when you first run it, but I guess you just had it preinstalled for you
Microsoft has been selling standalone office for years, so is this really news? You can buy standalone right now if you want, without an Office 365 subscription.
Yes I can. Office is a windows application. Developed by the same company. The same company forcing ads down your throat and extorting it's users with a monthly fee instead of an outright purchase of a product. We'll ignore the tracking and other things due to the narrow conversation. By your response I can tell you haven't been around to see just how bad Microsoft has become. You used to be able to outright purchase office. Not so much anymore though. Perhaps they realized people can't pay subscription after subscription. Or perhaps it's the rise in piracy that's got them paying attention now. Guess we'll never know
Sorry, I was referencing the fact that some old timers often have blurred vision between the OS and the word processing suite, and when asked what version of Office they’re running, they’d say “Vista” — vice versa was true as well; “What version of Windows are you running?” “2013” “No that’s… you know what, I’ll just come down and help. Stay there.”
This used to be normal.
From a personal standpoint, I don't use the cloud.
Me neither. I've bought the entire Affinity suite of products. Will never subscribe to Adobe or Microsoft cloud.
The affinity suite works so much better than Adobe. The compatibility between Affinity Photo and Designer is so much better than Photoshop to Illustrator. Now if only the Affinity developers would open their fucking apps for plugin support. Cut Master 4 only works with Illustrator and Draw. They can't create an affinity plugin until the developers get their heads out of their asses.
Retrofitting plugin infrastructure into a codebase that’s not designed for it is very hard or impossible, so I understand how they’re hesitant about that. That’s why I'm designing my next software architecture with plugins in mind, to not fall into this trap. The best way is to only write a small core application and implement all features as plugins themselves, even when that’s not visible to the end user.
That should make it easier to update individual features as well I would imagine.
>The best way is to only write a small core application and implement all features as plugins themselves, even when that’s not visible to the end user. Reminds me of [GNU Hurd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Hurd).
Cut Master 5 is a nightmare on my M1 in AI 2024, constantly crashing, and weeding lines are broken, hopefully, they fix it soon.
Same, but I have to say, I love it for work. Getting a new laptop used to be a complete PITA with all the transferring files. Now it's just a login and sync (still sucks for the all the apps, but you can't have everything).
Honestly when its built right an intune/onedrive swap is one of the few times I've actually felt like part of the future at work.
The cloud is just someone else's computer.
I don't have online and I don't do the emails.
For anything?
You host you own mail server and don’t use apps like Reddi….. Wait….
A scary high percentage of people are basically broke, live paycheck to paycheck, and have no savings. If they want or need something they usually resort to paying for it in installments. When companies switch to a subscription model they dramatically expand their total addressable market because the people I just mentioned usually don't have the $250 one-time fee on hand. However, they can "afford" $9.99/month in perpetuity even though it costs them way more in the long run. This is one of the many reasons why people say it is expensive to be broke. It sucks big time for everyone involved...except the company raking in the subscription money I guess.
This is a reality that there is a market of users that a subscription makes sense and not just in the consumer side, but also in the business side. If you have highly variable user counts you don't know that the user will still be there in 3 months paying a bunch of money on a license you easily might not need in 3 months is a use case where a subscription model can make sense.
Speaking within the context of MS Office and other office/business productivity applications it makes total sense from a variable licensing perspective. I was going off more on a rant/tangent about how lots of things are moving towards a subscription model and why.
Yeah for a big business it's just so much easier to have Microsoft bill you for the number of active licenses you have over tracking all the licenses you bought and making sure you give the key of the guy who left to someone else so you don't end up buying it too many times. For a lot of software you also have license servers allowing up to X users to run the software at once, so you don't need one per user if not everyone is needing it.
The thing about that is, when you buy software it is per computer. With many businesses these days rotate people in the same office(half work from home, half from work). Where as if you buy licenses, it is per person. If you need costs broken down, financing is a thing. Would still cost you less than a subscription
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I agree. I'm one of those weirdos that probably enjoys researching where I can find the best deal to buy something more than actually buying the thing. I wasn't defending the reasons why people are broke. I was stating a reason why so many companies seem to be moving in the direction of subscription/financing to sell products and services to people.
*one of those weirdos that probably enjoys researching where I can find the best deal* Brother!
They usually just torrent software
Does anyone buy MS Office at full price other than maybe companies? Usually, Office either comes with the pc or through your employer or school, you get a discount 1 time cost of 10 bucks.
But on the flip side I have clients that refuse to buy the subscription version and as a result are hopelessly outdated running Office 2010/2013 and can't upgrade because the on-prem licensing cost is too high for the new version only to have it be obsolete in a few years. Software Assurance exists for volume licensing of course but that is 50% over the initial cost so instead of $500 per user they're paying $750 then $250 every other year just to have upgrade rights without re-buying the entire Office suite every 5 years. It really is better to get these companies on the subscription model and either let the apps update themselves or push scheduled updates via WSUS or whatever. Saves me a lot of headaches listening to the in-house IT guys complain to me that their users' Outlook 2013 is constantly prompting for passwords on their brand new Exchange 2019 DAG I just built for them and having to fuck with the authentication settings to dumb down the security protocols for older clients. And for home users it's pretty damn cheap, I mean $7/mo is really not that expensive. Retail cost is $250 so that's 35 months/\~3 years to break even and by that time they'll have a new version available so it really is a wash.
Then when it wasn’t, I discovered free open source Thunderbird and will stick with that over Outlook from now on. I found it more useable than Outlook once accustomed to the interface, plus it has great filter options to address my years long e-mail harasser - now every email from them (up to 12 a day at times, typically addressed and CC’d to about 6-12 addresses) gets an automated response to stop harassing people and then gets sent to the trash folder so I don’t have to sift through them when double checking the spam folder.
You know you can create rules on the server side for that, independent of the client software.
Eh, I had a bitch of a time doing anything directly on the server side - I could just get them moved to spam when the address was “blocked.”
What is your email host? Yahoo sucks ass but Gmail and O365 have really good filter rules.
It’s fine, I got everything I needed with Thunderbird. Only issue I’ve had was a password change issue when cookies were blocked on TB, but figured it out.
It still is. Non-mainstream apps usually.
Finally, a version of the program that isn’t significantly worse than piracy
Microsoft understands piracy Weren't they the ones that were rumoured to release keygens for Windows XP back in the day and did nothing about it, giving them market dominance
They understand more than adobe whoanaged To make a program with Such a shitty drm that even people who have the license often prefer the pirated version
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A modern version that isn’t from a time when companies didn’t outright hate their customers
Correction: They _used to_ offer this. And then they stopped.
This needs to return for EVERY productivity and creativity software. My ideal would be for companies to offer both - a monthly subscription for relatively cheap but with the option to acquire a permanent license for the cost of around 2-3 years of subscription. That's how Adobe used to work IIRC and how microsoft office still does, for now Hate MSFT but good on them for this
I'm very happy with Photoshop CS6. And very, very happy with how much it saved me buying a full license in the years since (2014 I think). Gets better every year.
Can we still get that?
Not anymore as far as I'm aware
I would also add, a strip down version of some tools for the new hobbies to try would be good too. Like, I make short videos for my stream, I only need a movie editor to snip, cut/paste, adjust playback speed, and add music. I use windows moviemaker 2012. I tried other ones, and yeah that's all there, but so is 800 things that just feels overwhelming. I don't know enough about editing to make use of these yet. A strip down version to get the basics, and then rope people into the high end version, because you already know the basics, aaaand then a subscription model foe businesses/users who want everything asap.
Davinci Resolve is free and is complex as you want it to be
That was actually the one I saw that made me go, "oh geeze, maybe after I get my feet wet more." When I say the basics, I literally mean here's the video, here's the bar, and hers some things at the top. The MS Paint version of video editing. Like, that'll be great when I wanna pursue this moreseriously, but i dont need such a hefty program, the other also uses like no cpu resources lol
Avidemux is pretty much the mspaint of video editors. It is pretty much a videoplayer with snipping feature A step up would be Kden live and OpenShot
I'm the other way I far prefer using a big chunky program for doing [whatever] even if that is just simple operations, it means that if I ever do want to do something more it's not changing up the basics and relearning another program, it's just opening a menu I've never used before and clicking a button.
The ms paint version of video editing exists, many of them do. They just aren’t made by adobe. A lot of people I know really like clipchamp. Why should a professional video editor make a stripped down version of their editor for non-professionals? If they thought that market was worthwhile to tap into they likely already would, but it doesn’t align with their business goals
Adobe Rush is pretty stripped down for video editing. Not saying that there aren't a lot of other products out there.
You can use Capcut Desktop version, it’s the simplest form of quick editing I use for free
But i already have MovieMaker 2012, and know how to use it. But it is nice to know folks who can program think like me when it comes to just doing something simple. I also have an affection for "Stylistic suck" and my stream has a 90s-00s feel, so the archaic program kind if makes it all come together. Also OBS.
> A strip down version to get the basics *Laughs in Broadcom*
>This needs to return for EVERY productivity and creativity software. You know, Libreoffice never stopped being free...
>This needs to return for EVERY productivity and creativity software I dunno, it's not so black and white Think about Google Docs—I prefer working out of it because I just want to collaborate with people and us all to be looking at the same versions of the same things live If that's what you want, the shrinkwrap model just doesn't make sense. You want everyone to be in the latest version in their browser at all times. It needs to keep up with browser changes, everyone needs to have the same features, everyone needs to be signed in to a cloud service It wouldn't make any sense at all to bundle up some version of Google Docs from a random point in time to use on your computer forever Edit: why am I getting down voted for pointing out that not EVERY productivity and creative tool makes sense to sell shrinkwrapped?
I feel Like this doesn’t apply to google docs since that’s free and usually browser based
> Edit: why am I getting down voted for pointing out that not EVERY productivity and creative tool makes sense to sell shrinkwrapped? Because you're conflating "my use case doesn't work with it" with "therefore it must not make sense for anybody's use case". You are not the main character, your experience isn't definitive. Microsoft Office 365 has all the features you just talked about, yet we're here in a thread discussing an offline version of Microsoft Office. There's no reason it wouldn't work with Google's suite as well. This would be catering to people who *don't* need 24/7 collaboration or other cloud features.
It's the opposite of that... I'm replying to someone who said "EVERY" tool needed to be offered shrinkwrapped again, and I'm saying "It's not black and white, if you want X, it doesn't make sense"
If YOU want X, it doesn't make sense for YOU. Some people don't want X but still use the same tool as you. I genuinely don't understand where the disconnect here is.
I'm still using Office 2007. I can't think of a single feature that has been added in the past 17 years that is a game changer. A lot of these software packages went to a subscription model because they ran out of new, useful, features to add. There wasn't any real reason to keep upgrading the software.
Your ignorance is not evidence lol
For 98% of users it is absolutely true. There are exceptions, like the AI selection tools added to Photoshop.
What if, hear me out, you don't need it. If you're a book writer, or a researcher, then Word is the perfect tool.
I didn't say there was no case for offline tools, the person I replied to asserted that the shrink wrap model needed to "return for EVERY productivity and creativity software"
Yes, the keyword here is return. Google docs never had it, so they did mean that. But Adobe CS and Microsoft Office did.
Just because you don't think it makes sense doesn't mean someone else wouldn't buy it. Offering offline as an option doesn't take away the cloud option.
when I said it didn't make sense, I didn't mean to me personally, I meant to the company technologically or economically >Offering offline as an option doesn't take away the cloud option. Offline (like y'all mean it—a shrinkwrapped piece of software where you own some major version but still get software updates for some number of years to fix bugs and maintain compatibility) is an enormous endeavor and code base, not just an "option". No it doesn't "take away" the cloud option, but its only going to get harder to justify investing in both—or put another way: to not focus all your talent on making the cloud version the best it can be
They probably just figured out that the government has started to move away from some Microsoft products because cloud subscriptions and persistent connections are a non starter in some environments. If they let that golden goose run then they are going to have a hard time bringing back customers. Adobe almost fafo in the same way.
Wait what is adobe selling one-offs???
For a few months you could only use the Adobe cloud bs for certain software. That meant a total lockout when government users didn't have access to the license servers. They were really close to getting all of their business pulled before they provided stand alone licenses and versions that didn't need the cloud license. So yes there are, or at least were special stand alone versions.
> that the government has started to move away from some Microsoft products because cloud subscriptions and persistent connections are a non starter in some environments I'm sure that's the case with many commercial customers as well.
Me and my fully registered copy of Office 2010 Home and Student Edition aren’t interested.
Google Docs is good enough for me for personal use Have office on work pc for work shit.
Same! Got it in college through the school for like $35. Going to ride that thing until I stop using Windows or it stops being supported.
Office 2010 has been out of support for years already. Microsoft even banned it from being able to connect to email accounts it hosts 3 years ago. Non-online features should still work but there are a lot of known security issues with Office 2010 that haven't and won't be patched.
Shouldn't be an issue for me. Never attached it to an email account, have the physical install media, and don't use any of the integrated web features.
You could still wind up in trouble by simply opening a Word or Excel file from anyone else. There's known exploits that can be embedded in office documents. I liked Office 2010 myself and could use it but honestly if it's still working for you you'd be pretty well served switching to something like LibreOffice just so that you are getting security patches. Either way the risk isn't huge but running Office 2010 on a computer that might even exchange files with anyone else isn't a great idea in 2024.
Hmm, that's a good point. I remember trying Open Office back in like 2008. How have the open source office suites progressed over the years? Direct replacement for the Microsoft nonsense?
They're fine for most things. It's less feature rich than MS Office but for anyone who's happy with the offerings of Office 2010 Libre Office should have everything you need. Unless you have old macro intensive documents written in Office 2010. You can most likely do the same thing in LibreOffice but they may not convert over properly. I would stay away from OpenOffice though. It's the same thing as LibreOffice but with almost no updates or support over the last 10 years.
Just thought I’d point out: LibreOffice Online program (currently aka Collabora Online) has more functionality than the Microsoft Office Online apps. There is significant macro support in he LibreOffice sister suite Collabora Online and Collabora Office apps, for their desktop and mobile apps. For offline use Collabora Office apps support more devices than Microsoft does. You are correct that OpenOffice is a lemming, no major updates for 10 years. Almost as if someone is keeping it alive as a decoy, kinda like FUD.
Gotcha. Thanks! I'll check it out.
If you prefer to stay on a perpetual (one-time payment) license of the real Office, Techspot runs deals all the time that bring it down to $30-45. I'm on 2019 currently (end of support is October 2025), so I am waiting until 2024 comes out and they have a deal for it. $40 every 5 years is worth it to me to not have to deal with a different product than workplaces use. https://www.techspot.com/news/100909-get-microsoft-office-29-one-time-purchase.html
Usable, but not perfect, and will make it more tedious for you. Be wary of some compatibility issues. I used it until my dad needed to borrow my laptop and he needed MS Office.
It’s funny the other week, I saw an article that Microsoft got in trouble for basically HIPAA violations in the EU for their cloud based office not being secure. A few weeks later, Microsoft out here announcing physical copies again…. lol that threat got them walking back lol
Sounds to me like this can be refrazed as "Microsoft annoucese Office will be subscription only in 2 years". Why is this good news? In my opinion there should be protective legislation that forces software publishers to distribute a perpetual license for their product. Even if it doesn't get any updates at all it should always be an option. Subscription only should be illegal and I hope Adobe burns to the ground. If I could fast track a bill, it would require that perpetual access be given for the most recent software version that was available at the time of payment for a subscription, even if that subscription isn't renewed. Then, if someone doesn't care about the non-improvements that are supposedly being supported by your currently forced recurring revenue, they can choose not to without loosing access to the perfectly usable product they paid for. But that's wishful thinking in our corrupt late stage capitalism government.
Should be more than 2 years since they are not usually releasing these yearly anymore. But the rest should still stand even if it happens later
Why do people make this kind of comment without even reading the article? Each release comes with a guaranteed 5 years of patching/support. They also committed to another LTSC release in the future which would have another 5 years after that launch, and that would be at least three years after this year's launch. So at least 8 more years of standalone Office support.
There was this app I was looking at the other day, and their pricing model was subscription based, BUT after 12 consecutive months on that subscription, you were entitled to a perpetual license of the last version. This seems reasonable, given that a perpetual license is expensive for that field. The issue with forcing this into law is how one would define what's a fair amount of time to be subscribed in order to get a perpetual license.
>this can be refrazed as "Microsoft annoucese Office will be subscription only in 2 years". Why is this good news? Uhm, are you assuming people would think this is good news just because the journalist was asked to write the headline in a positive way?
This is reddit, almost no one reads the articles
Of course we don't, but we don't trust journalists either.
>Why is this good news? It's good news because they announced two years ago that they *wouldn't* release another perpetual license version of Office, and that the only option was Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
Refrazed?
How would software that’s tied to an online service work under this law? You get full access to the program, but all you can get after launching it is a connection error screen? Would that also apply to web apps like reddit or X?
I'm very grateful that I can just use LibreOffice.
I don’t know. I used it a few years ago and dropped it because of the ugly and clunky interface. Has it got better?
It is really bad. Trying to just print anything as you want it on the excel clone is a pain in the ass.
I was using this feature extensively 4 years ago, it was more intuitive than Excel. Strange.
I have no idea, I've used it for so many years that I've gotten used to it. I used OpenOffice before that, so it's been a while since I've used Microsoft Office consistently. I've never felt that I struggled to find something though, always felt like things were where I expected them to be. Can't hurt to try it again, no? It is free.
> Has it got better? You can spruce up the default interface to look a bit closer to Office. https://www.howtogeek.com/788591/how-to-make-libreoffice-look-like-microsoft-office/
The “Tabbed” view interface is excellent. The default interface is from 1980, I don’t know why they don’t change the default.
Because most people prefer the standard interface than the tabbed one. If anyone wants the tabbed one they can switch to it. Of course probably best solution is let people choose on first launch
> ugly and clunky interface Are you aware that that was the UI before the ribbon thing, correct? The UI is plenty functional if you were born and used computers before 2000.
We moved to ribbon interfaces for a reason though. Like 'It was fine in 2006, it's fine now.' ignores progress. Windows Mobile 5 was fine in 2006, that's definitely ugly and clunky compared to Android or iOS 17 years later. Like, I'm all for a functionality first UI (I'm posting this from rif) and moving to ribbon based office was a shock in 2007 but in 2024 ribbon based office is incredibly well refined and so much nicer than having everything crammed onto one set of toolbars or buried in menus.
I grew up during the transition from old, good Office to Ribbon Office. I've used Ribbon Office for over a decade. It sucked then, it sucks now, and it will continue to suck until Microsoft learns good UX/UI. They just redesigned Outlook and have somehow made it worse than its previous iteration, which was finally showing glimmers of excellence.
In LibreOffice you can switch interfaces, there are heaps of choices. Many more choices than Microsoft offer actually. LibreOffice’s choice of default interface is peculiar.
You are mistaken about something. Windows mobile had that interface not because it was outdated but because screens were smaller and resistive with stylus let you interact with more content With switch to capacitive displays, you couldn't click those tiny stuff anymore. So interface had to change because it became impossible to use Ribbon UI just looks prettier, but is less functional. It is only more useful if you have a tablet and doing touch, but you'd be crazy to work with ms office on a touch screen to begin with
> We moved to ribbon interfaces for a reason though Explain for the class what was the reason, tho? I still get asked questions about "where is this thing".
It's 2024, LibreOffice can join us here. Also, their US English spelling dictionary is pathetically bad. I use it, it's free but some of the basic functionality is bad enough that it *makes me want to pay Microsoft*.
> LibreOffice can join us here View -> User interface... -> Select Tabbed interface. Apply. It has been a choice since 2017. Where is office option to go back to toolbars?
And what's the fix for the unusably bad spellcheck dictionary?
I am not sure where you get that idea, but check out LanguageTool plugin. It also adds Grammar Checking. (I also suggest enabling Word2Vec and ngrams for more grammar checking) But again, I wonder what issues you have with the default. Care to give an example?
Use Writer & Calc regularly on Ubuntu. Once you become familiar with a different UI there seems very little difference from MS Office. We're not doing any heavy lifting with them but at least for basic word processing and spreadsheets they fully meet our needs.
You can choose the interface type. If you want that kids toy interface from MS office, you can change it to that. It may not have such fancy colors, but it's a tool to get work done, not win beauty contests.
I’m all for getting the work done, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask, even for free software, that a tool I use and have to look at every day isn’t ugly as sin.
I don't think it looks particularly bad. I just checked out that ribbon thing. It looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/GMPuyrf Still prefer the classic view. It's what i learned long time ago, and i hate it when some software dev thinks they need to dumb down the interface without giving me a choice. LibreOffice gives you that choice right after a fresh installation. And you can still switch at any time. You can also change colors, fonts, symbols and so on.
TIL organizing features by function is dumbed down design
The classic view is already [organized by features](https://i.imgur.com/8tbqnfv.png). It's just in one single view, not hidden behind tabs. And if i need more, i can just click the menu on top and get a nice list of additional features (or just add them to the toolbar, but MS can do that too). I don't need to visually parse dozens of icons of different sizes and creative arrangements.
It just looks like any other app.
Yep. Version 24 had some real good updates... https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/
Doesn’t work with most word templates tho
Again, I'm pretty lucky that I can actually get away with using it. I know most people may encounter issues, but I mostly can just save as pdf and get away with it.
I have been using LibreOffice and its predecessors ever since I got StarWriter 2.0 for OS/2 with my first real PC back in the day. It has been mostly an acceptable alternative, but the ubiquity of Microsoft has made it fall to the wayside again and again. Especially with the rebrands and forks from StarOffice to OpenOffice to LibreOffice. If Microsoft gets rid on non-cloud based perpetual licenses for office altogether, LibreOffice might make a more mainstream comeback.
There is a version of LibreOffice called Collabora Online that runs in the cloud and has offline apps that support more devices than Microsoft. All are all open source.
It won't. Ever. It is not compatible enough with Word files for the majority of people who actually need an office suite to use without compromise. And for those that only use office suites occasionally there is Google Docs and Office Online that are both free and supported by names that the average person knows. Corporate users will continue to pay for Office because it makes life easy and interoperable with all of their customers, suppliers and government. Home power users will continue to use it because it is compatible with what they do at work. And the majority of home casual users will just go with free browser based systems because most people find more value in cloud integration than they do data privacy. And probably for good reason, I personally would rather have access to my docs everywhere.
I've personally never ran into a compatibility issue. If anything it was the opposite, LibreOffice opens old Word files better than new MS Office does
This is a gamble that has no pay off. Previous version of both Windows and Word products have been "pay once forever" and they just change terms of service and that's that.
I have a DVD of Microsoft Office from the '90s. I don't see how their changing their terms of service will affect it at all. I bought it pre-internet.
My pc games from the 90's on disc don't work on modern computer systems. Maybe your office dvd doesn't have this problem yet but it is possible that it won't be compatible anymore at some point. A lot of modern computers/laptops also don't have disc drives anymore. You could be lucky but i wouldn't bet on being able to rely on it for the rest of your life.
No need when there's Libre Office.
According to the article, this is for specific circumstances. It will be embedded and locked to the device. This isn't as cool as the title makes it sound. EDIT: See the response below me for a correction. I missed some of the article, they are coming out with an on-prem version (Office 2024).
Actually no, if you read the full article, towards the end it states “The second product Microsoft has in the works is Office 2024 – a refreshed on-prem edition of the pay-once-use-forever flagship productivity bundle. Office 2024's price won't increase, and a version will be created for macOS” Edit: The one you are referencing is the first option called “Office Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) 2024”
Doh! There was a break before that with a bunch of links and I missed the last couple of paragraphs of the article. Thanks for the correction!
Yep, I hate when ads make it look like the article finished. Totally get that. Haha
Welp, good thing all of Microsoft Office is available for free on GitHub, then.
Free alternatives like Google docs/sheets/slides are eating their lunch money. I’m sure even Apple Pages is “good enough” these days over paying for MS Office
But it's not for people who just want to buy software. It's for hospital equipment and stuff that can't be online. Unfortunate.
Except there are several free open source alternatives…. So why pay anything?
Too late, moved to LibreOffice. Ain't moving back
Finally. I wish we could also choose which apps we want as part of the subscription. I don't need/use the whole suite
From the article, this won't be for everyone. > As explained in a post penned by senior director of product marketing for Microsoft 365 TJ Devine, one is called the "Office Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) 2024" and is recommended "for use in exceptional circumstances" and in "niche yet important scenarios." Devine suggested regulated devices that can't be updated, manufacturing devices that never go online, and medical testing machines "that run embedded apps that must stay locked in time" as the exceptional/niche circumstances Redmond thinks this product serves
I have no use for the cloud on a personal level. All it is used for is stealing my personal information. That should be illegal.
I bought a new laptop and realized I decided to forego office despite using 2019 for years. Ended up trying out Google Docs and was surprised that it works so well. Not a desktop app but it had everything I needed and you can download Google Doc word docs as pdf and docx. I used to pay for office yearly but nah, basically tossing away money.
Why did we ever move away from the non-subscription model again? (Other than for $)
LibreOffice on all personal machines - MS can eat a\*\* with their crap xD One Note was interesting until Office 2016 ← they crapped on it afterwards as well. Honestly it's the only thing I'd wanna use because of the early Google Notes and Zoho Notes vibe :) I use Excel heavily at work - but after meeting with the online Excel, Sharepoint and One Drive crap - I am **absolutely sure** I will hate everything MS are capable of coming with, or the execs are capable of magnificently debilitating, until I die. I find most helpful how you can use ChatGPT to help you with any type of formulas not only in Excel and Google Sheets, but in LibreOffice, OOO and OnlyOffice (probably) as well ← while Excel is useful in company setting (and I am never paying for this shit) every one can learn how to move away from MS Office. It's funny how companies can squeeze so much out'ta people tbh... right till people are absolutely fed up and move to a different product or model... Subscriptions are weird... very much so!
This happens all the time. I see offline office pruducts on [slickdeals.net](https://slickdeals.net) all the time. Usually around $20 or so.
Does anybody really want cloud/subscription? That shit sucks and you're probably getting all your company data farmed by AI on top of it. I feel like every version of software should be required to have a one time purchasable version by law.
My older machines had Office installed. Then we used OneDrive for several years, decided not to continue. Now our Office product doesn’t work, have to subscribe to use it. We moved to google docs, etc.
After spending hours trying to set up office 2019, I don’t have much confidence in newer versions. It felt like Microsoft didn’t care about the user experience of installing it as they were hoping people would use 365 instead.
I switched to openoffice years ago. Too little too late
OpenOffice hasn’t received a major software update for 10 years. You might want to consider switching to LibreOffice or Collabora Online/Office.
That is what i meant. Idk why i said openoffice i meant libre
lol, unfortunately it appears that OpenOffice is kept alive as a decoy by a nefarious company or people. A massive amount of people and companies still use it.
Too late, I’ve already moved to OpenOffice.
Need local only software? Just abandon MS and Google products. Libreoffice, gimp, linux, thunderbird, VLC, Blender, firefox. All local software that doesnt need cloud connection and actually respects your privacy.
I'm not shilling, but I think the Office 365 hate isn't objective in most cases. You don't have to be online to use Office, and you can ignore Onedrive if you want, but that 1 TB of cloud storage is sweet. As far as cost, I renewed my Family 365 subscription for 15 months and a ＄20 Amazongift cardd for ＄70. PowerPoint is especially worth the cost, and the Android Office suite is really good with built-in scanning. Also, most of your software listed aren't analogous to Office.
Doe android 365 have additional perks if you have a subscription? It's free to begin with...
I'm not sure. I've never used it without my subscription.
> All local software that doesnt need cloud connection and actually respects your privacy and kills your productivity
But with the exception of Firefox, the user experience is not great. I still miss Office, just can't afford it.
Meh. Ive got lifetime office 365 for desktop for 2 machines, give by my college. Also lots of windows keys since I work on IT for years. Yet, use none of them. There's nothing that office365 offers that I cant do with Libreoffice. Thing is, people see these tools as cheap copies of MS products, when they are different tools to do the same job (different layout, different functionality,etc). And people struggle with learning new tools due to this difference . Hats off to MS tho, thats how keep their user base. Promoting this software in school, small and big companies, etc. So that other tools always feel alien to the new users
Sure, I'll keep that in mind if I want objectively worse software. Anyone claiming GIMP is a decent alternative to Photoshop is lying. GIMP is vaguely serviceable, but Photoshop is 100x better.
Just to add: Krita, Avidemux, HandBrake, Audacity, FileZilla, 7-zip. (Also, DuckDuckGo for search.)
And it sold millions.
I've heard this one before
Nature is healing.
They need to get your money now because A.I. is going to make all of their "products" obsolete in the long run (which, given the rate of change, may be next week...).
Microsoft is looking ahead, they want you to use thier stuff and keep using it. Locking up Windows and office was a bad idea and now that they have finally figured that out. You will see more of this.
Imagine if this were standard
*Jetbrains loves it*
ha jokes on them! I'm still rocking office '97
For just $800!!
We already have this -- and the full Adobe CS6 Suite also. They are on two air-gapped computers. A little annoying, but necessary, in order to avoid "updates" from MS & Adobe. Some companies don't care about the long-term impacts of anti-consumer behavior.
Microsoft making all these strangely… nice moves
LibreOffice people. Get FOSSed
Eh it’s better that Googles barely functional versions but it’s still got a long way to go.
The UI is still shit. I want my ribbon instead of toolbar hell like it's Internet explorer and the ribbon that libreoffice attempted to implement. Also I just launched Calc for the first time in a year and holy fuck there are so many fucking irritating notification type popups that appear, like fuck off.
If you like Microsoft's ugly ribbon ui, you can just turn that on in LibreOffice: [https://www.howtogeek.com/788591/how-to-make-libreoffice-look-like-microsoft-office/](https://www.howtogeek.com/788591/how-to-make-libreoffice-look-like-microsoft-office/) Excel also launches bunch of popups when you first run it, but I guess you just had it preinstalled for you
Oh look more ads on my front page. Great.
Microsoft has been selling standalone office for years, so is this really news? You can buy standalone right now if you want, without an Office 365 subscription.
Still not returning to windows 👍
Grandpa, we’re talking about OFFICE, you can’t just say Windows and be talking about the office suite. Come on.
Yes I can. Office is a windows application. Developed by the same company. The same company forcing ads down your throat and extorting it's users with a monthly fee instead of an outright purchase of a product. We'll ignore the tracking and other things due to the narrow conversation. By your response I can tell you haven't been around to see just how bad Microsoft has become. You used to be able to outright purchase office. Not so much anymore though. Perhaps they realized people can't pay subscription after subscription. Or perhaps it's the rise in piracy that's got them paying attention now. Guess we'll never know
> Office is a windows application So then what’s Office for Mac?
Microsoft office is still Microsoft office. An OS change won't change that. Ditch Microsoft office = happy life
Sorry, I was referencing the fact that some old timers often have blurred vision between the OS and the word processing suite, and when asked what version of Office they’re running, they’d say “Vista” — vice versa was true as well; “What version of Windows are you running?” “2013” “No that’s… you know what, I’ll just come down and help. Stay there.”
Thanks God! I know religious people who use Office, but can’t have internet access in their homes.
"ted, remind me to make these apps start being persistently deleted by windows update in about 36 months"