I wondering what device and plan folks use for Microsoft Office at home. I am contemplating a new workstation, tired of borrowing hubby’s Macbook when I need to use Word for church committee stuff. He has ancient version of Office, would gettubg a newer version of Excel.
Current situation: When I retired last year, I was happy to ditch Windows and have mostly gotten along fine on my 3 year old Chromebook. But now it is having issues. I do have a new-ish 10.2inch ipad/keyboard, mostly bought to help coach my 94 year old father from afar. I think there is a way to do an ipad version of Word, but I’m not sure I’ll be happy with that.
Windows question - How painful/pricey is it to keep up to date on virus protection? That used to be a pain, but I have a feeling that more checking is now baked into Windows and the browsers.
Still resisting going the Windows path, though I might eventually relent. Consider getting the family plan (not necessarily from Walmart) and checking how Word and Excel work from my 10.2in ipad.
Today my husband ordered Microsoft 365 Family plan from Staples, $69.99 for 15 months (plus another free month if you sign up for auto renew).
My plan is to try that out from my ipad (10.2 inch, 8th gen). It may do what I need as-is, at least for now deferring new workstation purchase. Lots of options about where to store my Word docs, which will eventually be shared with my committee via email attachments (and also filed after quarterly meetings on a church google-drive, once I plugged into that ). It maybe will be easiest to use the Microsoft one-drive… not sure, still playing around.
At quick glance, on my 10.2in ipad I am happy with Microsoft 365 paid version of Word. It has extra functions such as Review tracking.
The thing I am struggling with is file management. I use Gmail (but could switch as needed to Apple Mail with gmail id). Not sure if my master “C drive”-idea folder set should be on ipad device, Google Drive, One-Drive (microsoft) or other. Thoughts?
More details: I will have an assortment of Word docs (sometimes needing to also make PDF version), spreadsheets and more from self and others as well as others. On a regular basis, usually quarterly, I’ll distribute files to committee via email attachment and also upload to church google drive. Doing multiple file attachments seems a challenge on cloud storage.
I keep most of my files in Dropbox. It works seamlessly with other programs, including my email, and appears on my computer just like MS files would. Couldn’t work without it!
Instead of distributing files as attachments, what I’ve done is create a folder on the cloud storage (eg. “Dec 2021 meeting docs”) and put the files into it. Then I share a link to the folder. Depending on what you want done with the files you can make them read-only or editable.
One other comment is that you should be cautious about putting files on cloud storage that have private information in them. Unfortunately there aren’t many easy solutions. If you keep them on a local PC then you need a backup plan in case the device breaks or is lost.
UPDATE: I am using my ipad, along with Google Drive (my own and the shared Committee drive), using Microsoft Office 365 / OneDrive when I need the power of Word.
It is mostly successful, just a bit clunky sometimes. One part of the learning curve was understanding there can be lag time as I detach files from email to Google Drive and when moving files over from my drive to the committee Drive. It was driving me nuts for a while.
H and I have an Office 365 business subscription as we use it for our business. I have a one-drive set up where I store all my work and personal files (including those pesky church docs!) It works seamlessly for me to access those files from either my MacBook Air (my primary computer) or my desktop Mac, or from even my H’s windows computer in an emergency. I have a zillion folders and subfolders and they are all right there in my finder for access. I like it SO much better than Dropbox or Google docs (which I know young people have zero issue with.)
I also have a small part-time communications job that requires me to use Publisher, but that Office program is not supported by the Mac platform. To solve that issue, I am using Parallels Desktop which allows me to run Windows on my MacBook when I am in Publisher. That has been working well also!
If you get frustrated with your iPad, get a MacBook Air - I LOVE mine! Best investment I have made in a computer!
Thanks for the helpful insights. When I was committee Secretary, real-Word (Microsoft 365, OneDrive) was necessary for doing Minutes as I want. Next week I’ll switch to Chairman, where I’m not sure I’ll author any docs… mostly it will be consolidating docs for meetings.
If I use OneDrive for file library, I’ll need a good way for getting back/forth to Google Drive and email. My current methods of sending OneDrive —> Email —> Google doc works, but I feel like there’s a more efficient method I’ve not yet found.