Office 2016 for Mac now available as stand-alone software for $149

“In July, we released Office 2016 for Mac to our Office 365 customers,” Kirk Koenigsbauer blogs for Microsoft’s Office Blog.

“The new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote are a significant step forward and provide the best of both worlds for Mac users — a familiar Office experience paired with the best of the Mac platform,” Koenigsbauer blogs. “The level of engagement and excitement about this Office for Mac release has surpassed our expectations.”

Koenigsbauer blogs, “As promised in July, today Office 2016 for Mac will also be available as a one-time purchase.

More info:
• Microsoft Office Home and Student 2016 for Mac – $149.99

Microsoft Office Home and Business 2016 for Mac – $229.99

Read more in the full article here.

34 Comments

      1. I’ve been using Microsoft Office products since 1992. It’s not a matter of experience, it’s a matter of need. And the need doesn’t come up as often as it used to. I agree in that I prefer Excel over Numbers for my uses. Probably my favorite Office app. There are few documents however that need all the bloat in Word. Your mileage may vary.

        1. Agreed, including about Word bloat. I used the first version of Word on a Mac Plus, but seldom need Office nowadays. However, if you need to create complex tables, Word is the best option out there. And of course, the key issue for Mac users working in a Windows/Office environment is ease of file transfer with your PC colleagues. This ability helps to keep the IT obstructionists at bay.

      2. MS keeps making minor tweaks with Excel but no matter how powerful it may be, it is a total kludge. Its interface is one that only the priests of accountancy can love – decades behind the times – but the ultra left-brain extremist thinking, fed by the combination of arrogance and ignorance of those who are incapable of perceiving all the pieces on the board, make a major top-to-bottome overhaul impossible.
        I use it nearly everyday, but I hate it. The rest of my time is spent using high-end software that reflects an awareness that a reasonable balance between left- and right-brained thinking is the norm in the real world.

        1. Excel slows to a very painful crawl with a massive spreadsheet. I had to work with a ~750,000 row, ~50 column dataset which the U.S. government furnishes as an Excel spreadsheet, and Excel took MINUTES to update a single cell, no matter what I did! I moved the data over into File Maker Pro and was able to get my work done with an immediate response to field updates. I had the same experience with other large datasets from other sources.

  1. I run the windows version via virtualization.
    It’s easier to pull data into excel from various data sources.

    The new version on the Mac is quite an improvement however.
    Nice job MS

    1. If by any chance you work in a large corporation with a volume license for MS Office, it is more than likely that they have this Microsoft Home Use programme (microsofthup.com), where you get Office for $10 (Win or Mac, doesn’t matter).

      MS has been doing this for some time, and it allows them to squeeze a few more bucks from office drones. They know that many are likely using the same volume license at home, so this way, they can get extra $10, and people can feel a bit better not bootlegging their office license on their home PC.

  2. Agreed. Too damn expensive for Microsoft crap. It’s time for more people to get used to Pages. Back in the 90s the WordPerfect people were dragged kicking and screaming to Microsoft Word. If that generation could do it, this one can too.

      1. And it’s TREMENDOUS value! It’s a letter and rudimentary desktop publishing not rocket surgery. Three quarters of the “features” are never used by the common man (or woman). If you truly need all that crap, then pony up 150 bucks and beat yourself up. Personally for me, a standard letter needs content, not smoke, mirrors, and animation. In fact if a simple letter takes extra time to load and space to archive, it pisses me off.

        1. All of Apple’s freebie OSes are inferior to Snow Leopard in every measurable way.

          Apple should pay me for all the WiFi hell that Yosemite put us through. And it’s ugly. Sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

          I am happy to pay for software that works. MS Office isn’t the cheapest, but it really is the best Mac office suite. It’s sad that Apple can’t come up with anything that even comes close to Word, let alone Excel.

          Also, let’s not forget that Apple doesn’t exactly give away its pro level software either. I paid for Aperture and Apple turned around and pulled the plug on it. At least MS continues support for most of its software, with impressive compatibility.

      2. There is a reason they are free. It’s Apple’s attempt to lure users into iCloud rental. Not interested in hobbled apps that don’t have the functions or usability of the competition. MS Office may have that hard-to-use ribbon, but at least it is fully featured.

  3. Pages seriously needs to bring back 2 page view. On a Retina iMac or even a 15″ Macbook Pro it is seriously frustrating to see only one page at a time.And why did Word get multitasking capability on iPad before Pages? I grow increasingly frustrated with Apple’s neglect of iWork. Doesn’t mean I’m ready to go back to Microsoft crap, but Apple needs to pay attention to its productivity software.

  4. Wonder if it’ll have support for Visual Basic? We use macros in our office to make large-scale predictable quick changes to documents. Never have been able to do that with my Mac version.

  5. I’ve been using Entourage (within Office) for a decade now and been less than thrilled. I’d like to wean myself off but not sure how best to transfer my email history, which I’d like to keep. Apple Mail can kind of do it but I’m not thrilled with it either. I wonder if the Office 2016 will make me change my mind.

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