New Microsoft Office 2013

This year is a year of updates to your software from Microsoft. First Windows 8 was released, and now Office 2013.  So what does this new version of Office offer you, and which one is ‘best’? 

Well, there are two branches of Office editions: Office 365 and Office 2013.  

Normal Office (Word/ Excel/PowerPoint/Outlook/Publisher/Access) is what most people are familiar with. You buy a product key or CD, it gets installed on your computer, and away you go! The new Office 2013 editions you can purchase now are for only one PC. 

However, Office 365 is what you would now purchase if you need more than one copy of Office in your house. The basic Office 365 Home Premium is for 5 devices, and runs on PC’s, Mac’s, Windows phones and Windows tablets. It is also what you would call a cloud based application. Essentially, you buy a product key, go online and download it, where it installs on your computer with Microsoft SkyDrive, which means you have a portable folder which follows you wherever you install it, and is accessible from the internet. So your home PC, your work PC, your tablet and your phone will all have access to that document you were working on. Even if you disconnect from the internet, your computer stores a local copy for convenient access. 

Office 365 is a subscription based service as well, which means you pay for a year’s worth of use, and any new versions or upgrades are included within that. Unfortunately, it also means that after a year, you can no longer edit your documents without purchasing another subscription. You can still view and print them however. 

There are new features too within each of the applications, for example, Word has better handling and alignment on pictures and Excel has a better grasp of auto filling fields and recommending graphs.  The best way to see the new features is to purchase the new Office 2013 and work through each application as needed.  Microsoft also have great tips through their “Help” menu. 

Remember, you can always speak to the experts at your local computer store!