Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is the downloadable desktop version of their popular suite of software tools. You can purchase Microsoft Office 2013 to use on a single computer and I've seen it currently available for around $100. The more recent version of Microsoft Office is called Office 365 and it includes all of the same functionality and the ability to download and install it on up to five computers. It's a much more cost effective business model for the average user and I'm a monthly subscriber myself. I use OneNote every day. After a good long search for the best writing tool to suit my needs OneNote won instantly. As soon as I logged into it I was hooked. The horizontal and vertical tab functionality along with the rich text editor features, and the ability to add multiple editors on a single page make it unique in their market. My story requires a lot of research and world building so the tabs allow me to create both horizontal associations and hierarchical based pages, so the big picture of my story is always in front of my eyes, while each main horizontal component is broken down into a vertical list of aspects that make up that particular major component. It's sweet. I use two other Microsoft Office tools for work almost daily. I use excel to maintain spreadsheets which I link to my online file storage account and update in real time for my colleagues so they know my latest work on our project. And I use Microsoft Word as well to keep another list for work too. I've used Powerpoint a lot to create business related presentations for myself and for clients. I like the Skydrive integration which allows files to be shared in real time in the cloud so it's very useful for remote collaboration. The new Skype for Business includes all of the Office 365 tools built into it, so all together it's quite a powerful suite of business tools which I highly recommend. I find the user interfaces of the applications I use to be very user friendly. Even Powerpoint which was not nearly as intuitive and easy to use a few years ago. It's $6.99 per month to use the whole Office 365 tools on one device though I pay for the $9.99 per month access to have it use it on both my computer and my laptop which I do frequently. You can access all of your work on any mobile device and it's all backed up in real time so immediately available on other devices instantly. I've utilized this feature many times to share work and it's great.

The installation of Office 365 software is a bit slow but perhaps that's to be expected. I'm not sure why to keep paying for this subscription as Google offers the equivalent tools that are 100% compatible with Microsoft file types with the exception of OneNote. OneNote is a real catch and it's worth the $9.99 per month just for this tool. Though I may downgrade to their one computer subscription as I almost always use OneNote from laptop. With so much functionality available in your account it's going to take some time for new users to get their heads around the software suite as a whole. But usually there are one or two tools you really need not the whole set to begin so learning one tool at a time is your best option. They are all quite user friendly and of course, Microsoft has an incredible knowledge base and community if you get stuck. There are also a ton of tutorials on Youtube available freely to help you learn more tips and tricks.

The compatibility of Microsoft Office files is the best reason to use Office 365 for business and personal use. It's almost a certainty that you will be able to store and retrieve any file across many devices and that's worth valuable peace of mind and helps efficiency in a day's work. You can create pretty much any type of document you need to. Microsoft has a lot of great pre-made templates available for each of their tools in addition to a strong knowledge base and community. I've used their Powerpoint templates for professional use and appreciate the value the provide.