to everyone for the replies. I suppose I got what I expected, some for, some against.  . I will however, have a look at Libre. Also, as suggested by @red_death , I will work out the yearly costs comparing the stand alone version with the 365 version, (using Office Excel of course!    joke!).

My employer recently moved us all from Office 2013 to Office 365.  I have a particular issue in often working on trains (in "normal" times) with no decent internet so I keep having to override when it keeps wanting to put files in the cloud and put them on the hard drive instead, where (I think) I've persuaded OneDrive to do a cloud backup. 

I've found Excel 365 to be much more flaky when handling large spreadsheets (these are very large though). 

Also Office 2013 had some basic help information downloaded and would go to the internet to get more unless you told it not to.  365 has only online help so it's not available when not connected to the internet.  And unless you store a file in the cloud via OneDrive I don't think it autosaves every few minutes as older versions used to.  Both the above assume there isn't some wonderful setting somewhere that I haven't found but will restore the previous behavior...

I don't use onedrive but sharepoint uses onedrive in the background and I can set it to create a local copy which fairly seamlessly syncs with the cloud version and auto saves.

Been using Office since Windows 3.0 and switched to 365 about 5 years ago.  No problems at all.  When you think what you get for the money it is a bargain in my view.

Argos has a fantastic offer at present.  Annual subscription of Office 365 Home with McAfee anti virus (I don't personally use that) for up to 6 devices for £39.99.  This is the cheapest I have seen it.

I have purchased two so that is me covered until 2022. 

Hope this helps.

Paddy

FWIW

I was a hardcore "PC Windows 'til I die" IT tech guy, then I bought a Chromebook.

So I'm Office 365, $79/year I think, and I get cross-platform compatibility, OneNote, my documents and photos in the cloud and 1TB of cloud storage for the price and a cool email address because I was an early adopter (first.last@outlook.com) - not hard for anyone to remember.

I'm typing this on a Macbook Air, and there are my Office apps all set to go. (The Mac is my company standard). My PC is for PC-only apps (Anyrail (!) and my crossword constructing software) and that's it. I do everything else on the Chromebook with various browser plug-ins.

Your mileage will certainly vary, but Office 365 fits my bill of needs.

I'm still using Office 2007. It's fine and, following a hard drive failure, I had to reload it earlier this year. No problems. If it does what you want, why change?

I use Office 365 simply because I move from workplace to workplace as a contractor and that is what clients tend to have these days, so familiarity helps and I am guaranteed file compatibility (particularly with Excel and macros). Similarly my children use it, as that is what they have to use at school and the subscription is not too bad since it covers all five of our machines. In a situation where I just needed office apps just for myself and my wife to use at home, I'd stick with an older version (in our case 2007, as I already have a licence for three machines) or use LibreOffice and save myself the money.

I recently put 365 on my laptop (paid about £2.50 for up to 5 devices) and first impressions were that I didn't like it so I downloaded Office 2019 for £2 on my desktop and am far happier with that. I may do similar on the laptop at that cost. I don't think I've ever paid more than £5 for any version of Office.

Quote from: Trainfish on June 01, 2020, 02:28:20 PM
I recently put 365 on my laptop (paid about £2.50 for up to 5 devices) and first impressions were that I didn't like it so I downloaded Office 2019 for £2 on my desktop and am far happier with that. I may do similar on the laptop at that cost. I don't think I've ever paid more than £5 for any version of Office.

Office 2019 is just a snapshot of the Office programmes, Office 365 is the same software just upgraded a couple of times per year (at most). Apart from Office 365 giving you more bits and pieces (that may not be necessary for most people!) what differences were you seeing in the software? With my Office 365 account I download the desktop apps as normal.

But real question is how are you paying so little for the software?

Quote from: red_death on June 01, 2020, 03:11:12 PM

But real question is how are you paying so little for the software?

I have seen re-sellers (?) selling licences for the programmes on the web - is that what you bought @Trainfish ?

Quote from: red_death on June 01, 2020, 03:11:12 PM

Quote from: Trainfish on June 01, 2020, 02:28:20 PM
I recently put 365 on my laptop (paid about £2.50 for up to 5 devices) and first impressions were that I didn't like it so I downloaded Office 2019 for £2 on my desktop and am far happier with that. I may do similar on the laptop at that cost. I don't think I've ever paid more than £5 for any version of Office.

Office 2019 is just a snapshot of the Office programmes, Office 365 is the same software just upgraded a couple of times per year (at most). Apart from Office 365 giving you more bits and pieces (that may not be necessary for most people!) what differences were you seeing in the software? With my Office 365 account I download the desktop apps as normal.

But real question is how are you paying so little for the software?

I haven't really looked at 365 much (on my laptop) but I'm not a fan of cloud based systems or storage and first impressions were that this was the case. I may be wrong there but I will have another look soon. When I had Office 2016 (on my desktop) it also downloaded the updates, I'm not sure if 2019 will do the same yet as I only installed it last week after uninstalling 2016 to try to sort out an Outlook Live issue but failing miserably. I have Word, Excel, Publisher, Powerpoint, Access and probably more but generally only need Word and Excel like most people.

Quote from: dannyboy on June 01, 2020, 03:18:43 PM

Quote from: red_death on June 01, 2020, 03:11:12 PM

But real question is how are you paying so little for the software?

I have seen re-sellers (?) selling licences for the programmes on the web - is that what you bought @Trainfish ?

Yes, I have only ever bought licences when I need to rather than the whole programme. You only need the key these days as you download the full programme from the Microsoft site. I've never had a problem with these and if I lose the account/licence details for whatever reason I just buy another for £2 or thereabouts. All of my files have been saved locally so it's never a problem.
Current version of 2019 is advertised on eBay and listed at £2.50 or 'Make an offer'. Offered £2 and they accepted, they may have accepted less! If anyone wants a link just PM me.

Quote from: GrahamB on June 01, 2020, 07:25:09 AM
I'm still using Office 2007. It's fine and, following a hard drive failure, I had to reload it earlier this year. No problems. If it does what you want, why change?

A man of my own heart  .

I still have the full Office 2007 which includes Publisher and Access. I only use Word, Excel and Publisher now and, very rarely, Powerpoint. All works fine and I can read others docs when they send them using 365. I still have bells & whistles, just not the brand new ones  .

Old saying comes to mind - "If it ant broke why fix it".

Seems weird to me,as home computers get faster softwares going backwards ,cloud storage, online software, almost sounds like a thin client.

Office 365 does give you proper, downloadable programs and does not require the use of cloud storage. However, if you choose to use cloud storage, you can also access cut-down versions of the apps, online, from any device and access the files in your cloud storage. The Web apps and cloud storage are just an extra, not the main offering.

Office 365 (now Microsoft 365) can be installed locally on your PC and provides full featured versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.  You also get 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage per user included.  You do not have to use OneDrive - that is optional.

As for the licenses on eBay etc. - be aware that the legality of these is questionable and are often excess corporate and/or OEM licenses being sold on.  This is in breach of Microsoft's licensing T&Cs.  Buyer beware.

Personally, I use office so much that I am happy to invest the £60 (typical price you pay in Argos) for an annual subscription.  That is £5 a month and it serves my wife, daughter and me.  So for £1.67 a month each we all have a full Office suite plus 1TB of Cloud storage.

Better value than the BBC license fee IMHO (ducks for cover!). 

Kind regards

Paddy

P.S. I am not a Microsoft employee, just a satisfied (reasonably) customer of 30+ years.