Unless you spent the past week offline, there’s really no way you could have missed the that Microsoft released iPad versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. There’s also no way you could have missed the uproar over the pricing for the three apps. Apple parallels desktop. But just in case you did miss the pricing uproar, here’s a bit of background on the issue. The apps are free to download and can be used to view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files (though installing a 400MB app to view a file seems like overkill). However, you can’t use the apps to edit existing files or to create new files without buying a subscription to, Microsoft’s online Office-everywhere service. And that subscription will cost you (assuming “you” are a typical home user, and not a business or college student) $100 per year.
Unmistakably Office, designed for Mac. Get started quickly with new, modern versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote—combining the familiarity of Office and the unique Mac features you love. This office productivity suite for Mac OS X includes desktop applications such as a word processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation manager, and a drawing program, with a user interface and feature. Download our free Office for Mac Quick Starts to get up and running quickly. Tip: To view, you may first need to first download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader DC software. Word for Mac Quick Start. OpenOffice.org is both an Open Source product and a project. The product is a multi-platform office productivity suite. It includes the key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites. Microsoft office word for mac. Send an empty email to users-subscribe@openoffice.apache.org and just reply to the returned email. News and weblog Recent news articles from the Apache OpenOffice homepage.
Suddenly those free apps don’t look so free any more. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at the Office for iPad launch event. Should you pay the $100 a year for create/edit access in the iPad Office apps? The answer to that question really depends on how you use the Office apps on your computer(s) and/or tablets, and how many computers are in your household. Note that I’m not addressing whether software subscriptions are a good or bad thing in general—that’s another subject entirely. I’m also not addressing whether $100 is too much, too little, or just right, because the answer to that will vary according to each person’s economic situation. I’m merely trying to address which types of users should consider paying the annual subscription fee, whatever it might be.