Microsoft office

[Calamity1971]

I've bought a laptop and it has widows 365 pre installed. My friend has a very old (ten years at least)office blag pro disk and key and I'm not sure it will work on a newer laptop. Looked at cost for official one and it's 40 quid a year, I'm not going to be using it that often so don't want to spend that. Can anyone help this complete novice when it comes to tech? Maybe a cheaper version available somewhere. I'm clueless so be gentle.
Cheers.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

what do you want to use 'office' for?

Libre Office (available as a free download) does pretty much the same range of stuff. Some of the commands / buttons are subtly different and take a bit of getting used to, and if you're going to be sharing documents / spreadsheets then you can open / save stuff MS Office formats, but there can be issues round formatting

 

[two sheds]

I've found Libre Office to work really well except for documents with complicated Track Changes and Comments. Even then it works, but just not as I'd like it to.

And yes you can save to .docx and .xls with no problems (which are the main ones I use).

And it's free as Puddy_Tat points out

 

[Calamity1971]

what do you want to use 'office' for?

Libre Office (available as a free download) does pretty much the same range of stuff. Some of the commands / buttons are subtly different and take a bit of getting used to, and if you're going to be sharing documents / spreadsheets then you can open / save stuff MS Office formats, but there can be issues round formatting

I'm currently doing a business plan on a friend's laptop. Also may need it if I get a business going for other stuff. Excel.etc, although I'm not up to speed on that. Excel for dummies is gathering dust on my shelf.

 

[strung out]

Google Docs and Sheets work functionally almost exactly the same as their office equivalents. No software to install, and all you're giving up is every piece of personal data you care to think of (which doesn't bother me, I still use it).

 

[two sheds]

Spreadsheets are great

 

[Calamity1971]

.

Spreadsheets are great

Even the word gives me the terror. Must look at that dummies book . You're one of those super organised aren't you , with incomings/outgoings sheets.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

 

[two sheds]

yus super organized here ("I can do impressions")

I do my accounts on a spreadsheet wot i wrote (cough), calculates everything for my freelance/personal stuff, tells me about how much tax I'll have to pay (with my earnings, that's not a lot ) and gives me the figures to fill in the HMRC yearly tax return. Has saved me days of time adding things up and then trying to find where I've gone wrong when they don't add up properly.

Plus I keep track of what I need to do around the house/garden with lists of monthly things to do that I've collected from various gardening and house maintenance type sites over the years.

I do like them, really easy to get on with. I'm still fairly basic with them but let me know what you need to do and I'll give you a help if I can. On-line help sites would I'd imagine be the easiest to start off with.

 

[Calamity1971]

Will hold you to that Mr two sheds .

 

[two sheds]

They're also really good to impress people with I was discussing one a couple of years ago with the bloke I work for and he said "ah yes it would be good to calculate that with it, too". "Hold on a sec" says I. And did a quick edit and it calculated that with it, too. He was impressed

 

[farmerbarleymow]

.

Even the word gives me the terror. Must look at that dummies book . You're one of those super organised aren't you , with incomings/outgoings sheets.

I'm another spreadsheet weirdo. It's enjoyable spending a few hours building a spreadsheet to work the way you want. I'm not an expert by any means, but there is something soothing about them.

Hope you get your IT sorted out.

 

[Calamity1971]

I'm another spreadsheet weirdo

Shhhh. cupid_stunt will be adding that to your weirdo wasp/seagull list .

 

[Saul Goodman]

Just steal a newer version of Office.
Does anybody who isn't making money from this sort of software actually pay for it?

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

That looks more like visual studio or maybe even access.

Admittedly can't quite remember what 97 and before looked like.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Just steal a newer version of Office.
Does anybody who isn't making money from this sort of software actually pay for it?

You can use most of the main ones for free nowadays.
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Calendar and Skype are free online.

So unless you want to use access or publisher or one of the more obscure ones you are fine.
Although this is probably only for personal stuff. If your using it commercially you would probably want to pay for it.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

I'm another spreadsheet weirdo. It's enjoyable spending a few hours building a spreadsheet to work the way you want. I'm not an expert by any means, but there is something soothing about them.

Hope you get your IT sorted out.

I also quite like this.
Although I always get a nagging feeling that I should probably be making a database instead.

Conditional formatting is particularly tasty.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Also there are a lot of great online tutorials for office.
If you fancy studying it an ECDL (European Computer Driving License) is a fairly solid qualification. The advanced one that cover databases is particularly good.
(It's not a replacement for an IT course but it is good for office skills)

 

[cupid_stunt]

Shhhh. cupid_stunt will be adding that to your weirdo wasp/seagull list .

Done.

 

[existentialist]

I'm quite anti-spreadsheets, but I think that comes from my IT days where department managers would scoot up with a diskette and announce that they'd put together a departmental database on a spreadsheet, and could I just sort out a few details, oh, and make it multi-user. Kind of an 80s version of last year's track and trace fiasco.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

I'm quite anti-spreadsheets, but I think that comes from my IT days where department managers would scoot up with a diskette and announce that they'd put together a departmental database on a spreadsheet, and could I just sort out a few details, oh, and make it multi-user. Kind of an 80s version of last year's track and trace fiasco.

Making a database on a spreadsheet is like eating soup with a knife. It's technically possible but can be quite painful.

 

[existentialist]

Making a database on a spreadsheet is like eating soup with a knife. It's technically possible but can be quite painful.

And that's before anything goes wrong.

Of course, when the database alternative was Access...

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Access is when someone sees you eating soup with a knife and hands you a fork.

 

[existentialist]

Access is when someone sees you eating soup with a knife and hands you a fork.

Plus, "I'll just put it on the network drive and voila, multi-user...hey, where's all the data gone?"

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Putting your files on the network drive is like trying to solve a river crossing puzzle using the honour system

 

[existentialist]

Putting your files on the network drive is like trying to solve a river crossing puzzle using the honour system

Ah, I see you've run out of cutlery

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Ah, I see you've run out of cutlery

A bunch of philosophers have it all.

 

[two sheds]

And that's before anything goes wrong.

Of course, when the database alternative was Access...

My first accounts program used Dbase II so a spreadsheet was a dreeeeeam.

 

[existentialist]

My first accounts program used Dbase II so a spreadsheet was a dreeeeeam.

I went the other way - proper DBMSes were the answer to all my prayers. And thus a career was born.

 

[MickiQ]

that is the funniest thing I have seen for ages, I can't stop laughing you bastard