Any student or worker has ever used Microsoft‘s office software suite. On Mac, it is possible to install this suite without any problem. In this article we tell you all the details you need to know in order to install this Microsoft suite on your Mac.
Official Microsoft installation
The most recommended way to install Microsoft 365 is to do it officially, through its website. There are many payment plans included, both with a single payment and a monthly plan. The latter may be the most recommended if you want to use the application suite in a timely manner and do not want to make a very high outlay.
Plans and prices
It is important to choose the plan that most interests you in Microsoft 365. Each plan is intended for a specific group of people: families, staff and students. The price is different and this is a consequence of the characteristics it has.
The Microsoft 356 Family plan (Office 365 Home) includes the option to download the office suite for up to 6 users. These applications include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote or Outlook. It is also ditched with a storage of 1 TB per person in OneDrive. The price is € 99 a year or € 10 a month with the possibility of trying it for a month. It is ideal for families who all work in office suites with the aim of sharing expenses.
Microsoft 365 Personal (Office 365 Personal) has the same applications that we have previously discussed but with the difference that this is a subscription for a single person. The price is € 69 a year or € 7 a month, with 1 TB of storage on OneDrive.
Office Home and Student is one of the plans that has fewer applications, since it only has the basic ones: Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The positive point is that you only have a single payment of € 149. In addition, any type of cloud storage is not included, so it must be contracted individually and separately.
One of the differences that you will appreciate between PC and Mac is that some applications such as Access and Publisher are only available for PC.
Compatibility with iOS and iPadOS
Something very interesting that these Microsoft pricing plans have is that the tools can be used on many computers. That is, you can use them on iPhone, iPad and Mac without any problem and without having to pay an extra for having it on each of the devices. This is very positive because it is very similar to Apple‘s iWork suite. Operation is similar in many ways like connecting to Microsoft’s cloud, OneDrive, which is iCloud’s counterpart. This allows having all the files in one place to work on any device as we say without any problem.
Obviously on iPad and iPhone there are differences with the Mac version. The differences are mainly in the editing and personalization functions of the documents. Thanks to the compatibility with the keyboard and mouse of the iPad it is possible to work quite comfortably, but there are some important limitations that can only be overcome with the Mac. This will evolve over time in order to equalize them. At the moment the iPhone and the iPad work in a complementary way with a computer.
Free Microsoft Office if you are a student
If you are a student or university professor, you should know that you can have a totally free subscription to the Microsoft suite. This subscription includes all the office programs that we have previously discussed as well as 1 TB of storage in One Drive to have all your work safely. This will depend mainly on whether your university has an agreement with Microsoft to give access to all these programs to facilitate the teaching task.
In order to have these programs downloaded, you can access through the website of your university. It is essential that you have the necessary data such as an institutional email to access all these programs and the space in the cloud. In this way you can access the institutional account on OneDrive and download all the programs. It is important to check with the university secretariat to be able to know if your center has an agreement or not. Obviously you have to be careful because all the files you have in OneDrive could be compromised as soon as you stop belonging to the educational community.
Microsoft Office as an alternative to iWork
Apple has developed an office suite called iWork that includes different applications similar to Word, Excel or PowerPoint. Obviously there are differences between the two work suites, and Microsoft’s is much more complete at the level of editing functions and also more widespread since it can be used in Windows and macOS. But the iWork suite is completely free for users of the Apple ecosystem, this is an important difference. You will not have to pay a subscription of about 10 euros in this case and you can work in a very comfortable way and without spending money. This applies to both iPhone and iPad where these tools are also found.
Avoid pirted copies
One of the fastest ways to get Office on the Mac is without a doubt through hacking. But obviously this is not recommended at all, since you can be a victim of installing malware through the installation file. It is always recommended to perform a completely official installation and not opt for pirted copies even if it comes out completely free.
Also with the pirte option you will not have all the updates that will be released. And obviously this hacking will serve you to have the suite on the Mac, but on iPhone and iPad you will not be able to use it since here there is no way to hack the applications or the service by being attached to a Microsoft account at all times.
