Microsoft quietly released a free offline version of Office, but you're not going to like it
Microsoft quietly released a free offline version of Office, but you're not going to like it
It has ads and doesn't support saving documents locally
50 comments
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An offline version with ads and no ability to store data locally sounds like an online version to me.
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I think here, offline refers to the non-cloud based approach...
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Microsoft
you're not going to like it
Tell me something new.
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That's not offline...
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I wouldn't call that offline.
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I installed OnlyOffice for a family member and they have no complaints. They were happy to learn they don't need to worry about subscriptions anymore either
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Why OnlyOffice and not LibreOffice?
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The UI mostly, and because the layout is familiar to them
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Just gonna add my “I use it for the ui” to the pile. Libreoffice is great in capability but it feels so unpolished visually. At least on Linux.
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I used LibreOffice and before that OpenOffice and recently switched to OnlyOffice. I find OnlyOffice more pleasant mostly because I like the UI.
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This isn't the first time they've had an ad supported Office for free. Anyone remember Office 2010 Starter, that shipped with only Word and Excel and also had a permanent ad banner.
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Yep, that's what moved me to OpenOffice and now libreoffice
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Being able to launch it locally if you can't save open or locally seems extremely pointless.
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Their desktop version of office has more features than the cloud web versions so this doesn't sound that bad. Also might mean the O365 small business license might be able to use a desktop client now instead of being web only.
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Mark my words: Office Online will "adopt" these advertising and cloud-save only features within 2 years.
(If this happens and I remember this comment I will try to link it).
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Can't dislike it if I never try it
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Why… would anyone use this? There are plenty of other perfectly capable free word processors…
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Lots of people like Microsoft and/or don't know any better.
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Wait a second, if you have to save it to onedrive, and have the onedrive app on your pc, it then will sync to your local storage if the onedrive settings are set to "make all folders available offline" automatically, or did i take crazy pills this morning and am missing something?
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that's the hook. they are mandating having and using onedrive cloud storage, and having its requisite microsoft account, in order to use this 'free' application.
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OneDrive comes with 5GB free storage, if you want to use the app, you gotta sign up for the MS account, no different than litteraly a million other apps out there. Might rub the anti Microsoft folks the wrong way, but if you read the article, one of the major point is that there's no local storage, which is not true, as the OneDrive app stores everything locally if you set it to.
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Just waitin' to be cracked and have those features re-enabled
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I swear "quietly" is the new "slams".
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Isn't this what a Pi-Hole is for? Unless it needs to autheticate each time you use ot from the same servers the ads are served from you should be able to safely block the ads.
I'm sure you'll have to log into a Microsoft account to use it so your data will still be theirs.
50 comments