Or, you can use Google Docs or Open Office or something else.
You can just use Pages and Numbers, which you get for free with your Mac. If having Word and Excel aren't important enough to you to spend $70/year, then there are alternatives. And yet, dont be so quick to discount the much less expensive Mac mini. Cost of one-time purchase Office (per PC) Home use, single user. Please see bottom of this page for a more detailed table. In fact, the iMac is the best Mac desktop of the year. Below is a summary table using actual prices and typical version requirements. For most users, especially those looking for an at-home solution, the iMac is the better choice. But I'd imagine eventually it will be subscription-only. There is a lot to consider when deciding whether to purchase an iMac or Mac mini.
The old method where people bought it as cheap as possible and then didn't update for 10+ years was killing the industry.Īs you can see wit that link they still do offer a "Office Home & Student 2019" one-time purchase for $150 if you really want that. Software subscriptions are the way things are going as the developers need a sustainable way to update software. A regular one is $100 per year, and they have a personal subscription for only $70 per year. You can use the current versions in the Mac App store with an Office 365 subscription. You also get additional OneDrive cloud storage and access to the Office apps for tablets. Rather than paying a hefty up-front price, you pay a monthly or yearly fee and get access to the latest version of Office for as long as you pay the fee. Catalina only supports modern 64-bit apps. Office 365, on the other hand, is the new way Microsoft wants you to buy Office. Notably, Apple ended support for the original Rosetta three years after its release.So it sounds like you were using very old versions of Word and Excel that were 32-bit. Instead, the Rosetta 2 translation process happens entirely on first launch, though there is a slight performance hit as the initial x86–64 translation of instructions takes place.Īpple says Rosetta 2 is a temporary solution for developers to make their existing Intel-based programs to run on Arm-based Macs, meaning they will eventually need to create native apps for Apple Silicon machines. In contrast to the original Rosetta – the version that allowed PowerPC apps to run on Intel-based Macs – code isn't interpreted in real-time. If youre ready for change, and Offices user interface, design, and tools arent burned into your psyche, get Apples iWork suite of apps.
To use Microsoft AutoUpdate, start an Office application, such as Word or Excel, and then choose Help -> Check for Updates.Īpple built its Rosetta 2 translation software so that Macs can run x86-64 code that's written for Intel Macs. The interface is different, and will take some time to get used to, but if youre really interested in kicking Office to the curb, the iWork suite is the best alternative on Mac. Users can get the new version from Microsoft AutoUpdate (MAU). Apple store is selling it for 160 Canadian.
The latest update applies to Office 365, Office 2019 for Mac, Office LTSC 2021 for Mac, and Office 2021 for Mac, which are available as a one-time purchase from a retail store or through a volume licensing agreement. Are there any special discounts out there that will allow me to purchase Office for Mac at a low price. If you previously used Rosetta emulator to run Excel, you may now disable it and run Excel natively on your devices. Microsoft has released a new version of its Office for Mac productivity suite that includes an updated Excel app with 100% native support for Apple silicon machines.Īccording to the release notes accompanying version 16.57, Excel will now run natively on Macs powered by Apple's M1-series processors without having to use the Rosetta 2 translation layer, which means anyone using a Mac with an M1, M1 Pro, or M1 Max processor can expect better performance and energy efficiency when working with Excel spreadsheets, particularly those that make use of the Power Query function.Įxcel is fully supported on devices with Apple Silicon CPUs: Power Query in Excel for Mac is now natively supported on Apple Silicon processors.