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Office 365 - Cheapest way to get?


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Must say, loving Office 365.  Very polished overall service.  I've been using a trial of it, and other than some slow download speeds with OneDrive I've been experiencing at home and at work everything is really polished about it.  I'm especially pleased with how good the iPad apps and even the Office Mobile for iPhone ain't bad.

 

I'll probably not subscribe to a yearly deal, quite yet (waiting for new version of Office for Mac to land).  Still, I'm wondering what might be my cheapest route.

 

My wife is an elementary teacher.  Is it possible that she can get a discount for the standard edition (the one that is regularly $99/year) and add me to her list of authorized MS accounts to use it?

 

Should I wait until some discount promo comes along?

 

Thanks for input.

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You can get the Office 365 Home Premium from Amazon for ~$72.00 final price. This is almost the same price with the retail price of the Home Personal.

It is a prepay card with a code which you get by mail, then you apply the code at office.com to subscribe or renew for a year and download the software.

I got a couple of them so far and its working just great.

 

This is the cheapest way to get or renew your Office 365 subscription right now.

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Office 365 Personal edition, you get one PC or mac, and one tablet. $69.99 plus tax for one year. Office for Mac 2014 er 2015 is supposed to come out later this year. Myself I have OFFICE 365 SMALL BUSINESS PREMIUM and I love it.

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Academic version - $99 (not sure what the USD cost is) for four years. Two licences to install on two PCs. Don't think you can add an authorised account though.

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Academic version - $99 (not sure what the USD cost is) for four years. Two licences to install on two PCs. Don't think you can add an authorised account though.

 

That is probably the best value.  Not something I personally qualify for, and I would want it on my account.  I need to be able to install and use on at least my Mac, Windows PC, iPad, and iPhone.  I also would like to install for my Wife's Mac, and step-daughter's windows laptop, and the downstairs Windows machine.  Looks like the personal edition would cover that.

 

Thing is, I've already invested in Mac Office 2011 and Office 2007 for the Windows machines.  I think I'm going to wait it out for the new Mac Office release.

 

Must say, I'm super impressed with the iPad versions of the Office apps.  MS did an outstanding job on making quite an elegant productivity app.  I've found PowerPoint to be especially useful.  Really impressed with how well it handled a really big, photo rich document.  That pretty much sold me on it.  Too bad it requires the Office 365 sub, because I'd easily pay for just a standalone of PowerPoint that had editing functionality. 

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Real quick answer - whats the difference between Office 2013 & 365 ?

 

Office 365 is web based - Office 2013 is offline.

Also, Office 365 is rented and Office 2013 is owned - so if you don't renew your sub, you lose access to it.

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For the Home edition it's usually cheaper to purchase it from an online computer store than from Microsoft directly.

E.g the likes of ebuyer, dabs, scan.etc in the UK at least.

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Office 365 is web based - Office 2013 is offline.

Also, Office 365 is rented and Office 2013 is owned - so if you don't renew your sub, you lose access to it.

 

Office 365 is web based - Office 2013 is offline FALSE

Office 365 is rented and Office 2013 is owned TRUE.

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Office 365 is web based - Office 2013 is offline.

Wrongy Mcwrong from wrong town  :woot:

 

Office 2013 = one time purchase--Office 365 = monthly/yearly subscription. There is no difference to the software, functionality, or cloud stuff.

 

You do get a lot more apps with Office 365 Home than you do with Office 2013 Home though. Swings and roundabouts.

 

Back on topic: Education is the cheapest route. My daughters college gives Office 365 ProPlus away for free with five subs. Granted that's only for a few years, but then she goes to University so I'll get another 4 years worth ;-)

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How do you downgrade your subscription? I only need the one license one PC plan but I subbed into the other one before they came out with it.

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Thanks guys!  I guess I'm not seeing much here in-regards to "Wait for XX special that should come later this year."  I'm going to keep my subscription monthly and just activate it as needed.  Probably look into a yearly sub again when the new Mac version comes out.

 

One other question regarding working with office files on OneDrive on Desktop.  Is it better to load the OneDrive website and use the web interface to launch the corresponding Office application or use the OneDrive syncing app and just load the files directly from the sync'd folder?  I'm using Office 2010 at work, and am wondering about this.  When I load from the OneDrive webpage, I get a "sync" icon instead of a "save" icon.  Of course, using the sync folder is more responsive when it comes to loading the file.  Just curious if you guys have any input on this, or if it is all basically the same.

 

 

How do you downgrade your subscription? I only need the one license one PC plan but I subbed into the other one before they came out with it.

 

I think just turn off Auto-Renew and then when you are up for renew select the 1 PC and 1 Tablet plan.  I'm not sure you can be pro-rated for changing your subscription... if it were possible, it probably requires you to call MS on it.

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Cheapest? Sign up for expert zone and do the classes to get it free or nearly free. Provided you can say or pretend your company qualifies.

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Must say, loving Office 365.  Very polished overall service.  I've been using a trial of it, and other than some slow download speeds with OneDrive I've been experiencing at home and at work everything is really polished about it.  I'm especially pleased with how good the iPad apps and even the Office Mobile for iPhone ain't bad.

 

I'll probably not subscribe to a yearly deal, quite yet (waiting for new version of Office for Mac to land).  Still, I'm wondering what might be my cheapest route.

 

My wife is an elementary teacher.  Is it possible that she can get a discount for the standard edition (the one that is regularly $99/year) and add me to her list of authorized MS accounts to use it?

 

Should I wait until some discount promo comes along?

 

Thanks for input.

It is a subscription, you don't need to wait for any version. You get latest versions as long as you keep paying.

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It is a subscription, you don't need to wait for any version. You get latest versions as long as you keep paying.

 

Yes, I know that.  My issue is that I've already invested in Office 2011 for Mac.  I've already invested in Office 2007 for Windows, as well, but I'm itching for an upgrade there but I can hold that itch for a few more months.  Its about getting the most value out of my previous investments before I override them with this new one.

You can get the Office 365 Home Premium from Amazon for ~$72.00 final price. This is almost the same price with the retail price of the Home Personal.

It is a prepay card with a code which you get by mail, then you apply the code at office.com to subscribe or renew for a year and download the software.

I got a couple of them so far and its working just great.

 

This is the cheapest way to get or renew your Office 365 subscription right now.

 

Thanks You!  This is actually what I was looking for when I started this thread.  Excellent.  Maybe I will buy now and not wait...

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Thanks You!  This is actually what I was looking for when I started this thread.  Excellent.  Maybe I will buy now and not wait...

You are welcome. I also suggest, if you never had Office 365 before you can go to office.com and activate your 30 Days trial for Office 365 Home Premium.

This will get you started immediately, until your prepaid card arrives, plus it will add another free month to your subscription.

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You are welcome. I also suggest, if you never had Office 365 before you can go to office.com and activate your 30 Days trial for Office 365 Home Premium.

This will get you started immediately, until your prepaid card arrives, plus it will add another free month to your subscription.

 

Bought a card.  Actually was $69 when I bought it.  Not sure I'll activate it right away.  I think I might hold off until I need to use office at home or on my iPad again.  My needs are intermittent like that.

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One other question regarding working with office files on OneDrive on Desktop.  Is it better to load the OneDrive website and use the web interface to launch the corresponding Office application or use the OneDrive syncing app and just load the files directly from the sync'd folder?  I'm using Office 2010 at work, and am wondering about this.  When I load from the OneDrive webpage, I get a "sync" icon instead of a "save" icon.  Of course, using the sync folder is more responsive when it comes to loading the file.  Just curious if you guys have any input on this, or if it is all basically the same.

 

After playing around with Word 2010 on my work computer, it seems that if I intend to have an Office document open on both my work laptop in Office 2010 and my iPad in the appropriate app it is far better to load the file directly off of the OneDrive website than to load the file in the sync'd folder on my computer (sync'd by the OneDrive application).

 

That way changes on one device are combined with the changes on my other device in a seamless way that is overall a better experience.

 

If I access my document via the sync folder on my laptop there is a "disconnect" (at least in Office 2010) and that disconnect can actually lead to issues if I'm trying to work on the document on two different devices at the same time.  Believe it or not, in my line of work I will often be working on a document simultaneously on my laptop and on my iPad.  I'm going to do some experimenting with Office 2013 at home, because I suspect that it is "smarter" about when a file is using the sync folder.

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Wrongy Mcwrong from wrong town  :woot:

 

Office 2013 = one time purchase--Office 365 = monthly/yearly subscription. There is no difference to the software, functionality, or cloud stuff.

 

You do get a lot more apps with Office 365 Home than you do with Office 2013 Home though. Swings and roundabouts.

 

Back on topic: Education is the cheapest route. My daughters college gives Office 365 ProPlus away for free with five subs. Granted that's only for a few years, but then she goes to University so I'll get another 4 years worth ;-)

 

Office 2013 doesn't come with the cloud services.

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Depends on what "cloud stuff" he refers to.

 

That kind that shows you that there are multiple "people" (or instances) working on the same document.  In Office 2010, anyway, if I load a file from my local sync'd OneDrive folder, it does not differentiate these files from any other file on my HDD and therefore has no intellegents about the possibility that I may have the file opened on another machine (say my iPad).

 

However, if I open the document via the OneDrive website, then my Office 2010 application shows that it is in more of a "syncing" mode (rather than a saving mode) and it shows me how many other "users" are connected at the bottom of the screen.  Hitting the save/refresh button updates the document and compiles the changes made on each device.

 

Essentially, loading files directly from the OneDrive website is a more feature-rich experience for Office 2010 users.  I haven't tried Office 2013 at home yet to see if it is "smarter" about what files it is loading.  Seems reasonable that it would be sensitive to files in the sync'd OneDrive folder and automatically facilitate the multi-user features.

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Testing PowerPoint 2013 at home on a document inside the OneDrive sync'd folder.  It worked as it should work and connected me to the OneDrive server showing me that I have 3 people (all me, on different computers) working on the same file.

 

That's awesome.

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