Microsoft Office was first released in 1990 for Windows 95. The question on many Mac users’ lips seems to be, “Should I pay for Microsoft Office for Mac or use one of its many free alternatives?” In this article, we attempt to answer this question and give you all the information you need to download, install, and start using Microsoft Office for Mac - if you decide that it’s a good choice for you. To make it easier to see the application name and whether it’s 64-bit or not, drag the 64-bit header from the far right to the far left so it’s right next to the “Application Name” column.Microsoft Office is the most popular suite of productivity applications in the world, and it runs on Mac computers just as well as it does on Windows machines. If you scroll to the far right, you should see a column that says “64-Bit” and the words “Yes” or “No” for each application. To do this, click on the Apple icon in the upper left corner, then on “About This Mac” and then on “System Report.” When the report opens up, scroll down to the “Software” section and click on “Applications.”Īn alphabetical list of applications will appear with various details about each one. How to check for 32-bit programsįor those that are considering an upgrade to Catalina, a good first step is to see what 32-bit programs you are currently running to determine if they are important to you or not. Depending upon which version of the MacOS your computer shipped with, you may have to use an external hard drive to complete the reversion. There is no simple way to go back to the previous version (Mojave), so this option is very time consuming and complicated, as you’ll have to wipe your hard drive and reinstall everything. Though it’s a web-based tool, there are options for editing your documents when you are offline. It includes Docs, Sheets and Slides, which are Google’s version of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, although nowhere near as powerful. If your needs for productivity software are very basic, you may find the free options available from Google through a Google Drive account to be acceptable. This means you either pay monthly ($6.99 for Home and Student) or annually ($69.99 for Home and Student or $99 for Business) from now on. Microsoft is trying to get users to convert from a single purchase package that will eventually expire to their subscription “SaaS” (Software as a Service) platform known as Office 365. The primary difference in the two packages is the Business version includes Outlook. You can purchase the Office Home and Student 2019 bundle from Microsoft for $149.99 or the Office Home and Business bundle for $249.99. If you have Office 2016, you should be able to upgrade to the 64-bit version through Microsoft’s standard upgrade process if for some reason it hasn’t already been updated. If your version of Microsoft Office is older than Office 2016 v15.35, you’ll have to choose from a variety of costly or time-consuming and complicated options.

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