Replacing Version of MS office that won’t be supported.
 

My current version of MS Office on my PC will no longer be supported after October. I am looking at alternatives to MS 365 and was wondering if other folks have used other vendors that offer an office suite of software. If so,
1) What are the pros and cons versus MS Office?
2) How secure is the software?
3) Is it open source or proprietary software?
4) Can you open Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents?

Up until now, I have purchased a version of MS Office and used it until it wasn’t supported and then purchased a newer version. As I look on line, I see that there are several sources for similar products but I am not sure of the quality of these products. I regularly use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Thanks for any help you offer. (Well, maybe not the snide comments but any help is appreciated.)

I subscribe to Microsoft 365 for about $100 per year. It gives me access to all of the MS software programs on all of my devices, free updates, and 1TB of cloud storage using OneDrive. Also, all documents are accessible from any device. I know you can get compatible programs for free, but MS 365 works well for me, especially since I have about 600GB of music, photos, and other data stored in the cloud.

You can still buy the stand alone MSoffice product, I typically see it advertised for around $150, I am using the 2010 version, but will be upgrading when I get a new PC. I have no use to the cloud storage. As for your question, I have seen many reviews of alternatives which will probably answer your questions.

Why not continue to use your existing MS office. Just because it is not supported does not mean it will not work. I am still using my 2007 version of MS Office, and they quit supporting that in 2017. It still works but is not updated with improvements.

///

You can use Office 365 via the Edge browser. Not sure of the details, but recently got this:

Yes, for $150 you can download MS Office on one PC. But, if you have 5 devices, you can only use it on one device. With MS 365, I can use the programs on all 5 devices.

2 other non-MS options both work well for me:

If you prefer installed software, the free LibreOffice is very similar to MS Office and can be configured to use the same file extensions by default. I have used it for years with near zero issues.

If you are comfortable with or prefer cloud based apps, Google Drive is terrific if not superior. It requires a free Google account that includes 19GB of free storage. Then go to Google Drive: Sign-in and click on +New and you can start or process any MS Office file.

I use LibreOffice too. I stopped using MS Office in the early 2000s and switched to OpenOffice, but LibreOffice had some database functionality that I couldn't get with OpenOffice so I switched to that instead when it became available for beta-testing. LibreOffice has replaced OpenOffice at this point, it's the successor.

LibreOffice is open source, as secure as your computer (however secure you've set your computer to be), has around the same functionality as MS Office Professional (not home version, it's much more advanced than that), and will translate MS document, spreadsheet, and database extensions just fine. It's freeware, though they do accept donations. LibreOffice is hosted by the Document Foundation, which took over after Oracle retired OpenOffice. These are all derived from the original version founded by Star Division in 1985, and the public version released by Sun Microsystems in the late 1990s.

That's the best reason for sticking with what you know.

Most of their "improvements" are just complications and features that 95% of us will never use. Meanwhile, the ones that you do use often get hidden away.

Use a a program called Open Office for Word and Excel. Free and almost identical to the Microsoft program. Use the word Almost as I do not know if it has all of the nuances of the MS program

Good information but 99.9% of us are retired and a simple Word and Excel program is what 99.9% of us need

Google suite. You won't miss Microsoft at all and office suite software for purchase, is a thing of the past. Most everything is going to be web-based and the regular people will all be using "Apps".

Thanks for all of the comments. I will explore the options. I realize that I can still use the software that isn’t supported, I will eventually get a document created in a future version which I won’t be able to open. Just the old project manager in me who is planning for the future.

You do not have to buy anything. Your current MS Office will continue to work fine. Don't be pressured into 365.

LibreOffice and OpenOffice are both free alternatives. I prefer Open Office. A few different hotkeys, and it wants to save documents
in a different format, but you can manually select .docx, etc..
Bottom line, continue with your MS Office.

Google Docs - FTW. It can do everything you might want in Word, plus you can collaborate on documents in real time, something that I think Office 365 allows.

Google Docs is free. So is Google Sheets (Excel alternative) - also real-time collaborative in case you wanted to organize something like a tennis team, for example.

Google Drive allows sharing of files or folders. Google Forms is nice if you want to collect information from multiple people.

Google Slides - I have not actually used this in a long time. But it works fine.

All of the Google products work on PCs, Macs, Chrome Books, Linux, smart phones, tablets, etc.

All of the products mentioned are Free. (As in free beer, not as in free speech.) You really can't go wrong with it. You don't need to worry about upgrades. You can also share them with others without worrying whether they use PC, Mac, phone, etc. It will "just work".

I use Stack Social to purchase many PC applications. I purchased Office 2021 for 39.00 for each of my PC's and dumped the office 365 subscription every year. It is a 1 PC lifetime license.
These are all 100% legit apps. The site is well known in the computer geek world, lol. Don't pay 150.00-200.00 for the same thing.
StackSocial: The Hottest Tech Deals, Delivered Daily
However as others have said, your Office apps are not going to stop working.
I still have an old Windows 7 machine that has the old Office on it and all the Office apps still work fine.
You just don't get new updates/features, but who care if you are just doing basic Word/Excel stuff.

Microsoft Office via Keysoff.com
 

You can buy a key to MS Office from Keysoff.com. I regularly do this. My current version is Office 2024. It is legitimate. They buy keys from companies that purchase computers loaded with Office who do not use Office. I believe I paid about $35 for my Office 2024 version.

I believe unsupported means you won’t get updates for the software but can still use it. I’ve been using old MS office software from 2005 and it still works on windows 11.

There have been a few things mentioned. 1st you can still use your existing office product, 2nd 365 has both cloud/web version and desktop install version for $99 per year which isn't all that bad a deal.

As for going "off brand" i have words of caution. in some cases, you can end up 'unsupported' meaning that 'off brand' i.e., google etc will claim your problem is MS and MS will say it's the other product. MS is a bit crafty there are pieces of Windows that are coded to basically cause issues with competition. Especially Google.

Simple advice, and yes I'm a MS certified trainer so it's a bit bias maybe, it's easier to do option 1 or 2

Free Office
 

Free Office in the Internet:
Free Microsoft 365 Online | Word, Excel, PowerPoint

Don’t bother with the non-Microsoft office suites unless you want to fight the strange formatting and other “close, but not right” issues. Also the learning curve can be an issue with the knock-offs.

Also, using the unsupported version or buying from Stack Social are good options.

It seems to me that Microsoft could easily prevent the use of counterfeit or obsolete products if they wanted to do so. Apparently, they don't want to, so they must be making money in another way.

Note that when Sony tried to prevent people from copying their music CDs, it didn't work out well for them.

ProductKeys.com sells a full version of Microsoft Office Professional 2024 for $21 (no, that's not a typo). It's not a subscription, it's the full version and is good for the life of your computer. I bought one for both of my laptops.

If you have an iPhone or iPad you already have access to Apple's suite of Pages, Numbers, Keynote and others. You can access them in your iCloud account. Those applications can open, read and save to .docx very easily.

I got off the MS merry-go-round after XP went away and went to Apple. Never looked back.

Using software no longer supported leaves your computer at risk. Without the support, you are not receiving updates that protect the computer from viruses, spyware and other malicious software.

A little off topic, but where can one get a refresher course on Office. I used spreadsheets years ago and now have a need to use them again.
Thank you.

I have Office 2003 that I use on my burner laptop. It has a compatibility update that allowes it to open, edit, and save the later Office file formats. I installed OpenOffice on my kids' computers and they had no problems with it. I have to use Google Docs for work stuff these days and, after I got used to its slight differences, it works fine too.

That advice is mainly for the operating system.
For Office, just disable scripts, java, and macros. Then you are fine. Nothing malicious has ever been identified that works without scripting enabled.

Open Office. It is open source, secure, works as well as or better than MS Office, and it is free.
It comes with some goofy foreign language fonts, but you can port your true type fonts from your old MS Office installation.

LibreOffice does the same things in the same ways that MS Office do. The keyboard shortcuts are the same, the little icons for people who'd rather click on things than use keyboard shortcuts are the same. There is MORE customization available, but if you want to use only the customization that you had with the limited MS Office, it works the same way. All the commands will be familiar to you. There are the same wizards and templates and sorting and mail merge options so if you want to send your group Christmas card to your 80 closest relatives, you can create the card with graphics and imported photos and print out the address labels with ease, just like you did with MS Office.


Plus, it's free.

Web-based stuff is only useful if you plan on only using it when you're online. If you want or need to work (for instance) from your laptop while in an area that has no wifi access, or the wifi and electricity went down during a storm and you still need to get something done, you can't do it. Unless it's NOT web-based.

It's the #1 reason why I don't use Google docs. LibreOffice is on my laptop, desktop, and tablet hard drives. My new tablet doesn't have a micro-ssd port which annoys me but I load things to the cloud and then download to the tablet's hard drive anything I expect to need every couple of months.

Warning - do not - DO NOT - use productkeys(dot)com. They buy bulk keys from questionable sources - often stolen and hacked to make them active, and sometimes stolen from people who've already activated for their own use (making them invalid to anyone else).

Right in the help files. People forget those help files are there. They're extensive, comprehensive, and have tutorials available online.

I bought the most recent non subscription version of MS Office. It was offered by HP when I ordered a windows 11 laptop. But this version is also available on the internet.

You are trying to solve a problem that will probably never exist in your lifetime. My one laptop is running the 2007 Office suite....thats 18 years old and can still open any document sent to me. If the day comes when you are unable to open a document, use one of the thousands of free converters (ie DOCX to DOC | CloudConvert ).

MS Office alternatives
 

I recently gave a presentation to The Villages Computer Club On this topic. See Meetings & Presentations - The VILLAGES COMPUTER CLUB Inc. and check the May 2 entry. Follow the link to the presentation. There are options other than switching to a non MS product.

Go to Groupon, search Office, several offers will.come up. I just bought Office Suite 2024 for about $22. You can pay half that for 2021. You download the product, apply the key they give you. Good to go. My wife has been running one of these for a year. I just replaced my 2007.

I use an older version of MS Office that is not supported for upgrades. I plan to continue using it until I can’t. Then I may get the subscription version or an alternative. No need to panic now and do the subscription version if your software does what you need.

You could try OpenOffice an open source alternative.

Apache OpenOffice Downloads - Official Site