which pack to buy for 2013?

[merlin777]

I'm using office 2007 and its time to upgrade. I have 2 questions:

i assume 2010 is a lot cheaper than 2013 - is it worth shelling out the extra for 2013?

Secondly, looking on amazonuk, there seems to be thousands of options and its difficult to work out which to get. I need word, ecxel, access, pwoerpoint and outlook at least - visio would be nice. I'm a home user, non-business and i'd like to put it on 3 pcs, all for personal use by me only. Is there a pack which cocers this?

tia

 

[Macropod]

Since both have been superseded by Word 2016, you might consider that as well. If Office 2007 is doing everything you need, though, I'm not sure there's much benefit in upgrading at all... Each new version adds some new features (and typically takes away some, too). You should do a feature comparison & read some reviews so as to make an informed decision.

 

[Smitty]

You might want to look at Office 365. It's subscription based, so it's always updating, but you can put it on up to 5 devices. I believe that Visio would have to be a stand-alone purchase though.

Disclaimer - I work for Microsoft, so I'm biased, but I use O365 on my personal machines and have it on my desktop, laptop and my wife's MAC.

 

[Macropod]

The problem with Office 365, especially since the Office 2016 version was released, is that many people have found the new release quite buggy and they had little control over what was happening to their installation. YMMV.

 

[Smitty]

The problem with Office 365, especially since the Office 2016 version was released, is that many people have found the new release quite buggy and they had little control over what was happening to their installation. YMMV.

True, and on the MAC for Excel that's for sure.

What's "YMMV"?

 

[Macropod]

What's "YMMV"?

See Urban Dictionary: ymmv

 

[Smitty]

Ahhh, got it. I'm sure my 11 year-old daughter would have known that.

 

[Kyle123]

Having used 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013 and now 2016; without a shadow of a doubt, I'd go for 2010. 2007 was horrible & buggy as hell, but offered some good improvements over 2003 - 2010 fixed the issues and has been the most stable version to date (for me at least). 2013 is horrible, it went for style over substance at the cost of performance, it's also buggy, 2016 is even worse.

If I had a copy of 2010 rather than the O365 I have, I'd use that - but I don't. There are some nice features that have been introduced with newer versions, but stability and performance seem somewhat poorer (don't even get me started on the mac versions).

P.S If you use the Power Pivot add in, look very carefully at where it's available before making the jump.

 

[merlin777]

Thanks, guys. Plenty of food for thought.

I dismissed 365 because i do a lot of work where i don't have internet access. Also, as you can tell, I get a lot of mileage from a package before I upgrade which makes subscription a much pricier option.

Is there some kind of comparison tool for packages (not versions) so you can find the combination of programs and licenses you need?

 

[Macropod]

You could start at:
https://products.office.com/en-us/buy/compare-microsoft-office-products
A bit of a search should turn up the variations within earlier versions - I think Wikipedia has some inclusion tables.