MS Office has started telling me "Subscription Cancelled. On o8 April most features will be disabled". They want me to click on a Reactivate button and pay £100 for a year of Office 365 for Mrs R and I.
As we only use the most basic functionality of Excel and Word, I though perhaps there are better value options that the more IT literate STW members could suggest. Maybe Google Sheets, or an open source program? I want to be able to open, modify and save Word type documents that people send me (doc and docx) ditto for simple spreadsheets. Any suggestion for a good way forward?
£100! Sounds like a scam. But I see that MS Office is >£100/year now! Edit - for the family edition https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/buy/compare-all-microsoft-365-products
libre office if you have a PC https://www.libreoffice.org
numbers and pages if you have a Mac.
You've a few options open to you.
The google apps are a bit annoying sometimes, but for occasional use are very capable. They can open the doc/docx formats and the sheets is capable of the xls formats. I don't know if it is still the same, but I didn't like that you used to have to upload the documents to google drive to be able to work on them, but that is the nature of cloud software.
Stanalone you have Libre Office which feels like microsoft office but from ten years ago. It's capable enough for basic stuff but as can be expected from free software it's a bit buggier than the microsoft product.
If you try either / both of these and they just feel too alien or don't work for your use case there are other ways to pay for an office subscription that don't involve going direct to microsoft. You can often buy a subscription at quite a discount on amazon or you can use a couple of the reputable CD key suppliers to get it at less than half the price MS quoted
Makes Adobe’s much reviled photo plan (Lightroom + photoshop + some online storage) seem a delightful bargain at £9.95/month.
Libre Office is the option I'd choose out of all the freebies available. I'm lucky to get 365 through work but have previously used libre and Google Sheets for spreadsheet work. Never got in with Sheets, absolutely hated it as it never seemed to work as I expected but Libre Office is so much more intuitive if you're used to Office.
One thing to remember though, if you are looking at sharing any documents and workbooks just make sure that you have saved them in the correct format as they can be difficult opening in Office apps otherwise.
Yes it’s Windows. I don’t think it’s a scam because it seems integrated into the program as you open it initially.
Software, cars, everything is attempting to force customers and clients onto subscriptions instead of a once only license, and they can go do one! There is now an alternative to photoshop which is almost identical in the way it operates, and works entirely online, and there’s a vector creation software equivalent to Illustrator just becoming available as well. Adobe needs to just wither away and die.
Do you already have a subscription? Have you cancelled it?
If you "only use the most basic functionality of Excel and Word" then you can do that online for free.
You can often buy a subscription at quite a discount on amazon or you can use a couple of the reputable CD key suppliers to get it at less than half the price MS quoted
My last copy was Office 2019 at £60.00 (that's fully paid up not subscription) from Fast Software but they don't seem to be in business now. I wouldn't know who to recommend but there are a few around if you Google e.g. CJS Keys As far as I'm aware these are Kosher but, you know, caveat emptor.
You might not care about word and excel but if you have more than 5gb of docs/photos in OneDrive then I would keep it. If there are two of you with a lifetime of photos stored away then it's a bit if a bargain compared to trying to look after making sure your machines are always backed up (remembering if course to occasionally back up OneDrive of course). I also really like being able to get to docs on all machines/phones.
It sounds like you might have bought your computer a year ago and it came with a free one year sub to MS Office
Thanks for your comments guys, I will look into libre office vs Google sheets. And if they aren’t suitable then get a key on Amazon or similar.
As far as I’m aware these are Kosher but, you know, caveat emptor
If they're significantly cheaper than MS/VAR pricing then they aren't (they'll likely be real keys but re-sold against the T&Cs of an OEM or Enterprise agreement). The main risk is they key might get disabled at some point in future (it only happens rarely though).
Glad you are getting things sorted OP. ~£100 isn’t wildly expensive for what Office365 offers*. But if you really only do use 2 things out of the office suite occasionally it seems an unnecessary expense.
If there are two of you with a lifetime of photos stored away then it’s a bit if a bargain compared to trying to look after making sure your machines are always backed up (remembering if course to occasionally back up OneDrive of course).
OneDrive alone is no substitute for a well organized and rigorously applied backup plan. Especially if you only occasionally back up to it. I won’t go as far as saying ‘if it is not backed up assume it is already lost’ but there have been enough emergency recovery threads on here over the years that you want to be sure your valuable data are backed up and that you can recover them.
*even though it is worse now in several ways than it was a few years back.
There loads of websites out there selling cheap keys.
As I understand it, they are "legit" but in a sort of grey area as they are "OEM" keys that should not be sold individually but with computer hardware. A few years back, there were some places that sold licences and also supplied a cheap bit of outdated hardware. They don't seem to bother anymore.
A bit like a corner shop selling cans of Coke from the special offer multipacks
Makes Adobe’s much reviled photo plan (Lightroom + photoshop + some online storage) seem a delightful bargain at £9.95/month.
Scratch that, it is now £14.99/month!
There is now an alternative to photoshop which is almost identical in the way it operates, and works entirely online, and there’s a vector creation software equivalent to Illustrator just becoming available as well. Adobe needs to just wither away and die.
There is no other option to Lightroom that I have found that I like as much as Lightroom. Which is pesky.
If there are two of you with a lifetime of photos stored away then it’s a bit if a bargain compared to trying to look after making sure your machines are always backed up (remembering if course to occasionally back up OneDrive of course). I also really like being able to get to docs on all machines/phones.
Not really, google drive is far cheaper (or free if you're under 15GB i think).
There is a github page with a windows activation script that works for Office as well.
Whether or not it's legal I have no idea, but given Microsoft own github and this page has been accessible by everyone with an internet connection for years suggests it might not be 100% illegal.
I'll not link it here just in case, but it can be found easily enough.
If you “only use the most basic functionality of Excel and Word” then you can do that online for free.
This.
I was also going to say that if you want full functionality locally Blue Nandu will sell you a legit key for £52, which is what I paid 2 weeks ago, but I see that it has now gone up to £68 in line with MS's hike from £80 to £105. I only pay because Mrs OneWheel is reluctant to get to grips with Google - I myself find the Google options perfectly adequate.
<edit> This https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/microsoft-365-gets-massive-45-percent-price-hike-and-its-all-to-do-with-ai-tools suggests that the hike is to pay for Copilot and that it is possible to opt out of the AI features and keep the old price. I've yet to find any sign that this applies in the UK </edit>
If you log into the Outlook webpage you can use Word and Excel online from there even as a non subscriber.
Seems ok for occasional use
Thanks guys for the additional comments.
FWIW, I save the my photos on Google, which I’m very happy with, but use the free handful of GB in MS OneDrive for my documents.
There is a github page with a windows activation script that works for Office as well.
No idea what that means, but I’ll look into it.
