Google Office vs Microsoft Office

Have a look at microsofts Cloudservice "OneDrive for Business" OR is that the big cost?

Chr.

It's not clear what your goal is: moving to the cloud, or getting away from MS Office?

Google Docs are most valuable when they need to be shared among users in different places, but if you don't regularly download a copy and your Internet connection goes down, you won't have access to them.

If ditching MS Office is the primary motivation, I suggest you investigate LibreOffice. It's donationware and pretty robust. I've replaced all my MS Office apps *except* for Access with LibreOffice, and am doing fine. I found that Libre Base, the database application, was too slow with the Access database I've been using to manage my business since 1993, so I did buy a standalone copy of Access 2016.

Open Office is a good solution as well, if you are just trying to get away from Microsoft Office.

Jimmy Cleveland, post: 405357, member: 91 wrote: Open Office is a good solution as well, if you are just trying to get away from Microsoft Office.

Note that OpenOffice has basically been moribund since Oracle acquired Sun in 2011 or so. Oracle laid off the OO paid staff and handed the project to the Apache Foundation, and last I heard OO had only 16 active developers. LibreOffice is the fork that continues to develop, with over 200 folks actively moving it forward. There are some functional differences as a result, though most wouldn't be noticed by any but the most intense users.

That's interesting. I had no idea. I actually moved from Open Office to Microsoft Office due to my wife's job, and also now that I am at a different firm, we use Microsoft Office here as well. I picked up a software package that had 2 licenses of Office 10 for a very reasonable price, and I do like it much better.

Google Apps is a subscription service. But you can get Office 365, which is its primary competitor, for about the same price. But Office 365 gives you far greater value and familiarity.

I am waiting for shrthrn to reply... "what is your goal?"
I very strongly advise: do Not "MOVE" anything. Copy is OK, but as Jim said above, those online services are not always "online"
Maybe that is confusing, sorry.
Keep a Copy of Everything "local" (on your computer and also copied to an external drive, or two)

I use several cloud services, they are OK, but not secure. All the big boys keep multiple copies... and it is not uncommon for them to take a few days to restore data when something fails.
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LibreOffice is bundled with almost all major Linux distros, it is well supported and free. I have a couple MS licenses but don't use it because it is slow and clunky.

Sorry all, been a little busy and not have the time to reply. (which is a good thing, i guess lol)
I guess my ultimate Goal is to keep my cost down at all possible, but still keep the functionalities of a Microsoft Office. Regarding the Cloud Service, I already use a cloud drive and I do keep a local copy. I have been using office, in fact I do have a couple of License for my kids computers (High School and College). The main problem being that every time I turn around, it seems I am paying subscription renewals for this and that and they are a few hundred dollars less than buying a out right license. Kind of nickel and dimed to death

A couple years ago, I was introduced to the Google Apps. I loved the idea of being able to work in the team setting without all the issue of who is in the files. The other was the ease of accessibly of the programs; tablets, hotel computer, phone, laptop, it did not matter. Like I said before I use it for my private stuff for my house and my volunteering time helping coaching teams, training coaches/refs, scheduling games. There have been several times when I have been out of town and did not bring my computer, received a call or text for a scheduling conflict, pulled up sheets, made the change, sent the notification out from the hotel computer.

So in all, in your opinion, do the google apps warrant looking at or use of in a business since? I do not know anyone near me that uses it. Just trying to get a little input

Thanks,

If your primary concern is cost then I second Jim's suggestion of LibreOffice. It's free, and quite familiar to MS Office users. I use MS Office at work and LibreOffice on my laptop and at home - sometimes back and forth on the same files.

I've never used Google Office, so I can't comment on that. It sounds like you may be the best judge of that here.

If you want to share and collaborate with others I suggest using one of the DropBox type accounts, the LibreOffice or MS Office files are easy to post and retrieve.
I did have a military client that insisted all documents and spread sheets be in "native" MS Office. I would normally work in LO then open in MS and save again, that made them happy. A few years ago I forgot and sent a big wad of LO files without that step. Either they did not notice (probably) or no longer cared. I don't use those fancy fonts and special "enhancements" in MS or LO, just simple documents....
LO does easily and cleanly save to PDF, many folks want that.

When I started getting more serious about my web development business, that was about the same time Google announced Google Apps (or whatever they called it back then). At the time, it was free, so I jumped in. It was great, since it was pretty much the first of its kind -- a full suite of applications similar to MS Office, but with everything stored in the cloud. When they started charging for the service, I upgraded, and it was noticeably better. I really liked the whole ecosystem a lot, but there was always something not quite right. The conversions to and from Office formats was clunky, at best, and some things were far more complicated than they needed to be. I couldn't find many emails by searching for words I knew they contained, yet I could manually find them, which took much longer than a simple search would. This was very ironic to me, since Google is a company based around a search engine. But that's a story for another time.

Anyway, I'd been keeping my eye on Microsoft, who had been working on Office 365. I noticed a lot of people signing up for it, so one day I took a closer look. I spent months watching Office 365 evolve, reading articles, doing some research in my copious free time. What I discovered is that Office 365 is more secure and actually has many more features. About a year and a half ago, I bit the bullet and migrated to Office 365. I expected a horrible migration experience -- trying to get data out of Google and into Office and how would all that work? -- what I found was a VERY easy process that Microsoft detailed very well in their documentation. Basically, I flipped a couple switches and walked away for a couple hours. When I came back, all my bazillions of emails were all there, even the archived ones, along with the entire folder system and everything. Wow.

To anyone who says that it is terribly expensive to get into Office, I think you may be confusing the old Office with the new Office 365. It used to be you had to spend a pretty penny up front to buy the Office software and upgrades weren't cheap either. But the reality now is that Office 365 is very competitive with Google Suite in terms of price. The advantage Office has over Google is the sheer amount of services you get with Office.

Since my company is just me and my wife, mostly me, OneDrive for Business is wonderful. I have my project files stored in the cloud but also synchronized with my local drive. Internet connection or not, I have my data. Because my Office 365 subscription includes apps for both the cloud and for local installation, I'm never missing out on any functionality either. I have the familiarity of the Office software I "grew up with" plus the modern features of the cloud. And with the subscription service, I never have to engage in those huge, expensive Office upgrade events where you had to babysit your computer when upgrading. Windows 10 keeps them up-to-date in the background and I'm a happy camper. I can't remember a time prior to Office 365 when I had so much less software management to do on a regular basis. Everything just works. So it's easily worth the $25/month price tag for both of us.

Also don't forget if you are just looking for 1 installation of the Office suite and 1TB of OneDrive storage, it's only $70 per year. If you need up to 5 copies of the Office suite and 1TB of OneDrive storage per user, it's only $100 per year. These are the Home plans, which are pretty dang cheap, if you ask me. I'm on the Office 365 Business Premium plan, which has many more features, hence the $12.50/user/month price tag. Still a great deal though, if you have a need for the email service and all that.

Link to Office Home plans (there's a link there that will show you Business plans also)

I'm not gaining anything or getting referral points or whatever for talking so highly about Office 365. I'm just a very, very happy customer.

We are switching to Office 365 at work. Email already migrated. I haven't used it much. Windows 10 is getting a lot better. The upside benefit is it bricked my old smartphone. I've been asking for a new phone for some time. So IT tried to hook it up and the guy looked shocked that I was using that old dinosaur. He finally sent an email to me and my boss that the phone is obsolete, can't hook to my email (which is essential) and if I try it'll eventually permanently lock my account OMG. So my boss goes to his boss who says we have a phone in a drawer or you can order a new one. I said order a new one because the one in the drawer will probably go obsolete next year and they'll be sticky about replacing it. So boss says he already told them that. So I'm getting a new Samsung smartphone, its about time.

Daughter uses Google Docs at her job. She uses an iPad Pro with keyboard. I don't know what it is like otherwise. She works for a marketing firm in Marin County.

I just downloaded and installed Libre Office and it looks pretty good, I'm using the writer. Haven't tried Calc yet.

Dave Karoly, post: 410297, member: 94 wrote: I'm using the writer. Haven't tried Calc yet.

IMO Calc more closely emulates Excel than LO Writer emulates MS Word.

Mark Mayer, post: 410357, member: 424 wrote: IMO Calc more closely emulates Excel than LO Writer emulates MS Word.

I agree. Just today I was preparing some fairly extensive notes for a Record of Survey. I like to fully justify the text on plat notes, and Word has (or had; MS may have removed it) a converter that will save the formatting of a Word document to ASCII text. LibreOffice doesn't have such a thing, so I went nosing around and found a perl script that does the job. It's an extra step, but it worked nicely.

shrthrn, post: 405231, member: 8020 wrote: Guys I want a little input. First of all, pardon the wrong tech words for those who are extremely tech savy.
I am looking to possible move all of my files, docs, pics, etc to a "cloud" service for my small business. I have used Microsoft office in the past and to the current, but realize the move would be extremely costly. I have used the Google apps for my personal things at my house and have been very satisfied. So has anyone out there made a transition in their survey/engineering business to Google? Pros? Cons? Things to avoid?Things to make sure of etc? And just any advice.

Thanks in advance, and all of you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Ralph

I dumped the Microsoft email for Google years ago and am happy I did. With the Google mail I get about 30 gbs of online storage per email account which so far has been enough for 18 years of email plus several hundred docs and spreadsheets. It's $5/month per email address but i think it is worth it to never worry about virus, updates, backups, etc.

Sorry but MS Office costs what? $100 or $200 a copy?
Man o man, my kid's sneakers cost more than that.
It's gas money for a week?
A fancy dinner?

I think it's a small price to pay for a decent all around software package that is used by 90% of the planet?
I was once in a small village in Burikina Faso and the village captain or tribal leader had an old Compaq laptop
that he uses to make & read documents and it had Office 2000 installed on it.

If he could afford it then I think a surveyor working on a paying project could well afford it too.
Bill Gates needs his retirement fund replenished.

FrancisH, post: 410872, member: 10211 wrote: Sorry but MS Office costs what? $100 or $200 a copy?

$70 a year for 1 PC.

FrancisH, post: 410872, member: 10211 wrote: Sorry but MS Office costs what? $100 or $200 a copy?

That's a lot when you can have something that works as virtually as well for free.

That's a lot when you can have something that works as virtually as well for free.

I tried OO when it was free from Sun Microsystems, it was sluggish on a PC that also had Office running smoothly.
That was reaon why we reverted back to Office suite.
Difference between something that's free and paid for.

Have you ever wondered why MS Office is still selling when you have several free office suites?