Microsoft Office Mac Vs Windows Comparison

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  1. Microsoft Office Mac Vs Windows Comparison Version
  2. Microsoft Office Mac Vs Windows Comparison
  3. Microsoft Windows Vs Apple Mac
  4. Microsoft Office For Mac 2011

In comparison, Windows computers these days are mostly being shipped with trial versions of Microsoft Office. In general, Macs have acquired the reputation of being less complicated, easy to use and trouble free compared to Windows Computers. If you need everything that the suite has to offer, Microsoft 365 (Office 365) is the best option since you get all the apps to install on every device (Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, and macOS). Compare Word features on different platforms, including Word 2016, Word 2013, and Word 2010 for Windows, Word Online, Word 2016 for Mac, Word for Android, Word for iOS, and Word Mobile. With Office 365 your purchase is also good on non-Mac PCs and other devices, and; Short-term, Office 365 is less expensive. Office 365 requires regular connection to the Internet. The Office 2019 package should include any bug fixes and security fixes for a while. I think it is 2025 but I am not sure. It will not include new features.

Microsoft Office remainsthe gold standard of productivity suites, but there are several different versions/editions of Office available for users of Apple hardware. Together with Parallels Desktop and Parallels Access, the Apple user can access just about any of these versions/editions on each of their hardware platforms.

While Microsoft produces all of these suites and the suites have a very high degree of similar functionality and visual fidelity, they are not identical, and no single suite has all the features of the entire group.

This blog post will enumerate most of the differences between the following suites and their apps: Seagate program for mac.

  • Office 2016 for Windows ('WinOffice 2016')
  • Office 2016 for Mac ('MacOffice 2016')
  • Office 2013 for Windows ('WinOffice 2013')
  • Office 2011 for Mac ('MacOffice 2011')
  • Office for iPad ('iPad Office')

The vast bulk of the content in this post is in the following five tables, which list the differences I found. Note that because the tables lists differences, no row of the table will be all checkmarks (since this would mean that all the suites had this feature, and thus this wasn't a difference) nor will any row be all 'X's (since this would mean that no suite had this feature, and thus it isn't a difference either). I am listing the differences because listing the similarities would take much too much room—the suites are that identical.

Hopefully, this will assist you in choosing the best version/edition for your use. In addition, I will describe my personal Office setup.

Here are the five tables (click on each thumbnail for an enlarged view):

Table 1: Suite-wide differences

Table 2: Word differences

Table 2

Table 3: Excel differences

Table 4: PowerPoint differences

Table 4

Table 5: Outlook differences

What differences surprised me the most? These two:

Right-to-left language support in iPad Office:

WinOffice has had support for right-to-left languages like Arabic and Hebrew for many years. While Mac users have been asking for such support, no version of MacOffice, even the latest MacOffice 2016, has had such support. Therefore, I was quite pleasantly surprised when iPad Office added support for Arabic, Hebrew, and Thai.(See Figure 1.)

Figure 1: Arabic text in iPad Word on iPad Pro

No multiple selection support in iPad PowerPoint:

All Office programs provide some way to select content in a document (text, cells, or shapes, for example). This is needed so that the user can apply some operation on just that content (change the color, for example). The Windows or Mac Office applications also provide for 'advanced' types of selections. In Word, this is non-contiguous text selections; in Excel this is non-contiguous cell selections; and in PowerPoint this is the simultaneous selection of multiple objects. In Word and Excel, these really are advanced types of selections that are rarely needed by even sophisticated users of Word or Excel. (See Figures 2 and 3.)

Figure 2: Non-contiguous cell selection in MacExcel 2011.

Figure 3: Non-contiguous text selection in MacWord 2011.

Office

But in PowerPoint, the ability to select multiple objects is a pretty basic capability. (See Figure 4.)

Figure 4: Multiple selections in MacPowerPoint 2011.

I wasn't surprised to learn that non-contiguous selections were not supported in iPad Word or iPad Excel, but I was astonished and very disappointed to learn that multiple selections were not supported in iPad PowerPoint.

My Use of Office

So, which do I use? The short answer is that I use all of them.

I worked on the MacOffice team at Microsoft for several years, and at that time I also worked closely with colleagues on the WinOffice teams. Because of this background, I am often able to pick just the right Office app that will make a given task the easiest to do. One task might be particularly well suited to MacWord 2011 because Publishing Layout View—a feature only in that one Word version—will make this task easy. Another task might be suited to WinPPT because of the Animation Painter, which is not in any MacPPT version. Yet another task might be best suited to WinPPT 2013 because it needs an Office extension not available in other Office suites.

Having all the versions of Office at your fingertips used to be rather hard to setup, not to mention very expensive. Luckily, that is no longer the case.

Microsoft Office Mac Vs Windows Comparison Version

With a single Office 365 Home subscription, you get five installs of the Office suite and you can pick which versions make up this set of five. Since I have Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition on my Mac, I can run any version of Windows without rebooting. Because I have different versions of Windows running on my Mac, I can also run different versions of WinOffice on my Mac and have everything I need on one computer. (You can download a free trial of Parallels Desktop for Mac here.) Here's my setup:

  • MacOffice 2011 is my main productivity suite and is installed on my El Capitan MacBook Pro. MacOutlook 2016 came out long before the entire MacOffice 2016 suite, and because of the vastly improved performance of MacOutlook 2016, I use it as my main email client, instead of MacOutlook 2011.
  • WinOffice 2013 is installed in a Windows 7 virtual machine (VM) (under Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition) on my MacBook Pro.
  • iPad Office is installed on my iPad. As you saw in the tables above, iPad Office is lacking many of the features of WinOffice and MacOffice, so I also haveParallels Accesson my iPad which lets me access and run the full featured versions of any Office suite (or any other application) on my computers and use them with natural iPad gestures. (You can download a free trial of Parallels Access for iOS and Android to access your Mac and/or PC atwww.parallels.com/access).
  • MacOffice 2016 is installed in an El Capitan VM (under Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition) on my MacBook Pro.
  • WinOffice 2016 is installed in a Windows 10 VM (under Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition) on my MacBook Pro.

So, why don't I use MacOffice 2016 as my main productivity suite? Four reasons:

  • Only MacWord 2011 has Publishing Layout View, a feature I depend on heavily and consider essential.
  • To me, MacOffice 2016 has a kind of cartoon-like look to the user interface that just doesn't appeal to me.
  • There was no compelling feature pulling me to MacOffice 2016, and
  • Inertia was keeping me in MacOffice 2011.

Those are my five installs, and with this setup, I have easy and immediate access to the best Office app for any particular task. I tend to store all my documents on Dropbox so that I have easy access to them from any of my Office suites or Apple platforms.

Which Office suite(s) do you use, and what's your setup?

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Old Habits are Difficult to Change'

The same can go with MS Office, as we are habitual of using MS Office for our professional and personal documentation work. This habit becomes more beneficial for iPad users when Microsoft has introduced a full suite of office for Apple products. This decision has increased the efficiency of the iPad in terms of office documentation.

In-fact you will like some functionalities of iPad more in comparison to Windows Tablet. Though you have to buy a subscription plan to use Office in iPad as well as in Windows Tablet, but the functionalities are totally different. If you wish to use Office for free in your iPad, you can still use some features of it, like reading documents, give presentations, and even mess around with spreadsheets, using documents on the device or in OneDrive. However, for editing or creating any document, you have to buy an Office 365 subscription. On the other hand Windows provides a trial pack of MS office to test its efficiency and usability for a month only, after that you have to purchase it for Windows as well. Whenever you use MS office closely, you will get to know some minor changes in the functionalities, it depends upon your requirements, whether they are better or worse for you.

Here are the major differences that you will find between Office with iPad and with Windows Tablet, whenever you use it.

Macros Support

Macros are included as one of the best features of Office, for many users it is a blessing to save their time as well as for large data management. At times, Macros are the compulsory function to use for some users. If you are one of them, then iPad will not provide you that functionality, as it does not support Macros. On the other hand, this problem will not be with Windows Tablet. However, remember that Macros are also not supported by Microsoft's Windows RT.

Integration with Windows Office Groups

Working with Office in the collaborative environment with an iPad, is not very efficient. As there is no way for iPad to integrate inherently connected file shares with the use of any other application. However, Windows Tablets are designed for this, and they are more conducive to integrate docs with existing data infrastructures, which are created on the MS platform. This is a major issue that an iPad user will have to face whenever they use Office professionally.

Keyboard and Mouse Control

In case you want to use your Windows Tablet or iPad as a PC, and want to connect them with external keyboard and mouse, iPad does not offer you such functionality. However, Windows Tablet support this functionality, and can be connected with the mouse, even you can switch between touch and mouse functions, where iPad does not support this feature. On the other hand, Windows Tablet also supports external keyboard function, but iPad does not. Still you can connect external key board with Bluetooth to iPad, but it specifically does not support an external keyboard feature. Though these are very small issue and you may not bother to use MS office in iPad without mouse or keyboard.

Text Enlargement

Some people are used to read documents on their tables and for that, they use zoom feature. iPad has a feature called magnifying glass by which user can easily increase the size of text. However, as this is a special feature of iPad, so windows does not support it, but there are many other ways available in Windows Tablet, which can help user to increase text size.

Text Correction

Some people have the habit to make typing errors while creating spreadsheets, documents or presentations on the Tablet screen. To solve such problem MS Office offers the auto spelling corrector feature, which is common in iPad and Windows both. The only difference is, way of highlighting. In iPad, you will see the correct words are highlighted above the wrong spelling, but in Windows Tablet, it will be described with a colored underline like a desktop version of MS office.

Microsoft Office Mac Vs Windows Comparison

In spite of all the differences there are also some similar features that MS office has with Windows Tablet and iPad both. Therefore both the devices are popular for this app and people make choices of platforms according to their requirements. Let's discuss some similarities between using MS office with Windows Table and iPad.

Microsoft Windows Vs Apple Mac

Similar Features

Microsoft Office For Mac 2011

The differences that office shares with Windows Tablet and iPad are so minor that you do not have to adjust much, whenever it comes to switch the platform. You will find the basic programming functionalities same, on both of the devices. You can use complex formulas in Excel with Windows Tablet and the iPad both, and can use all the Word functions, even the naming conventions will also remain same as before.

Using MS Office with Windows Tablet and iPad is not very different from each other except some professional features. At times, user needs Office just for personal usage or for small office purposes. It depends upon the requirement of the work, whether which platform will be the best for the user. If you go for core professional work, Windows Tablet is better than iPad office, however, for normal user iPad is more flexible.





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