Is It Worth It to Upgrade to the newest Version of Office? [Ask Lifehacker]

Dear Lifehacker,
Earlier today, Microsoft released Office for Mac 2011 . I love to maintain with the most recent software, but I’m wondering: Is it well worth the upgrade?

Signed,
Oscillating Over Office

Hey Oscillating,
That’s a fair question, and one a whole lot Office users ask themselves whenever a iteration hits the shelves. Of course , we looked into this when Office 2010 for Windows came out earlier this year. But let’s discuss it a bit more, and look at the Mac release a touch.

The short answer

Unless you’re a Microsoft Office power user-wherein I mean, you’re taking good thing about the deepest and darkest secrets of Office, of its advanced formatting options, of server-oriented business tools, of VBA scripts, etc-you don’t ought to upgrade whenever Microsoft releases a re-creation of Office.

The longer answer

It’s never that straightforward, though, is it?

Why You might have considered trying to Upgrade
There are three main reasons you’re able to technique to upgrade to Office for Mac 2011: 1) Outlook 2) cloud-based collaboration, and 3) performance.

This version of Office for Mac ships with Microsoft’s popular desktop client, Outlook. In the event you’re a Windows Outlook user, or your workplace requires you to take advantage of Outlook but you should stick to your Mac, that’s probably your most compelling reason to upgrade

Like Office 2010 for Windows, 2011 for Mac adds some cloud-synced collaboration. That’s an extremely nice thing when you’ve got to take advantage of Office but you furthermore may would like to work in tandem with someone on an identical document.

Finally, if Office for Mac 2008 was really rough for you on performance, 2011 should provide a tight bump. The app was purportedly rewritten from the ground up, and includes significant performance increases and some nicer integration with the Mac desktop. In the event you don’t mind the performance (I never found it to be that bad by some means), it’s not important enough it’s worthwhile to upgrade. But in the event you’re a typical Office user and that you may really make the most of the improved performance, it could be worth it.

Why You will Not Wish to Upgrade
That said, if all you do is light word processing, data crunching, and so on, save your money. Seriously. This is often common knowledge among most geeks (well, actually, among geeks who don’t just download the newest upgrades via BitTorrent or Usenet), nevertheless it’s a positive reminder.

Unless you’ve got a particular feature you will want, it is advisable follow your old version of Office or, once you aren’t already using Office, choose something different. It’s not that Office for Mac 2011 is bad-it’s got some very nice improvements over its predecessor-it’s just that it costs $150 or $280 for the Home version and Business version, respectively. That’s plenty of cash for a better feature set you possibly don’t need-just like dropping hundreds on Photoshop when all you might want to do is crop and scale photos.

What must you use instead?

Anything. Seriously. good and free Office-like suites which can handle what most of us need without breaking a sweat. Essentially, at some tasks-like live collaboration-they’re still a head and shoulders above Microsoft’s offering. (Office 2010 for Windows and 2011 for Mac have introduced some cloud-enhanced collaboration tools, but it surely’s still less than what Docs can do.) Try Google Docs or Zoho, or perhaps something like previously mentioned TypeItWith.me (that is just Etherpad resurrected).

You’ll also find no shortage of usable word processors for the desktop which can likewise read and write DOC files-like, say, the very fast Bean for OS X. (Even better, in the event you can break out with it, just persist with glorious plain text . Across platforms, you can even wish to study suites like OpenOffice.org or the recent spinoff, LibreOffice . These suites are probably more horesepower than the common user needs, but if you would like a middle ground between Microsoft Office and the lighter tools, they may be what you’re searching for.

We’re not seeking to come off as anti-Office here. It’s a good productivity suite, and if you want specific features it offers-if you want more than regular old writing and spreadsheeting-you most likely realize it already, and you’re using and may continue to take advantage of Office.

Love,
Lifehacker

P.S. Did you are taking the plunge and upgrade to Office 2011? Let’s hear what made it definitely worth the upgrade price for you within the comments.

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This post is tagged: client outlook, desktop client, Microsoft Office, oriented business, performance increases, recent software