Microsoft office 365 - do we really need it?

[Brownbootscoldheart]

DD has a project to do for school which requires her to have access to word and excel over half term, she has started the project on school computers but it’s meant to be finished off over half term. Usually homework has been given on paper or worksheets etc and so it’s the first time she’s needed access to a PC.
We have iPads and she has tried to download the word and excel apps a bit they don’t seem very user friendly. I’m happy to buy her an inexpensive laptop but im not sure whether she will need the full Office suite or not? I recall being able to use word online but will this be the same format as word that she’s been using in school?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Well if you want to pay for it again next year... You do get a few codes for different machines but you have to fork out again each year.

Greedy gits!

What’s word online like? Can that be used rather than me have to buy the software? Or will the formatting be different to the ‘proper’ word software?

open office works almost like excel & word and is compatable
don't know if that would work on an ipad though.

Is it specifically Word and Excel she needs or just word processing and spreadsheets? If the latter, there are plenty of free options. I use LibreOffice myself although I don't have a tablet so not sure of the options there.

lenovo idea pad is cheap and comes with office for the first year

I use Libreoffice. It’s free to download and compatible with Office files

She has started the project using word and excel on the school PCs. If she simply has a laptop and emails the documents to herself and opens them up in the online versions of the software will they be compatible?

Oh thanks green elephant I’ll see if I can find it for sale

It might be worth seeing if this is available to her next time - some schools are signed up so you get Microsoft Office 365 for free.

products.office.com/en-gb/student/office-in-education

Is she at primary or secondary school? They probably don’t, but check whether the school has MS volume licensing agreement; otherwise there are freebies but the formatting sometimes goes funny when opening in actual Word.

Word and Excel aren't user friendly anyway. They're better on the iPad than they are on Windows/Macs. I've been using the fucking horrible things pretty much continuously since 1990, so feel justified in having an opinion on this.

What's even better is Number and Pages on the iPad, both free from Apple, and you can export them back to Excel and Word at the end of the holiday.
support.apple.com/kb/PH26612?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US and similar for Pages.

She has started the project using word and excel on the school PCs. If she simply has a laptop and emails the documents to herself and opens them up in the online versions of the software will they be compatible?

Yes - at least I think so. I signed up to an office 365 trial and realised it had expired and what I had actually been using was the online word and excel apps when I'd saved things on one drive. I'm carrying on like this until/unless something forces me to need it offline.

If she needs it for a month, get the free trial. They do pay monthly options too, don't know if there's a minimum term or if you can just have it for a few months then cancel, might be worth looking in to. Do you have a laptop she can use? I find the online office apps much easier with a keyboard.

Oh, Spoon, if only I could agree! But having used everything from ye olde WordStar and WordPerfect onwards, plus all the free ones, I just don’t think anything's as good as Office. Scrivener is very good for specialist professional word processing applications.

Pages is absolute pants. That’s why it’s never taken off.

She is at secondary school, will check to see if the school has purchased the rights - thanks

I will buy her a basic laptop, I’m happy to spend up to £200, am hoping I can get somethings half decent for that.

Try the second hand laptop market, from somebody who refurbishes them :)

Google docs can be saved as word and Excel files I'm sure

Microsoft have a education package that's free for students (I think including school pupils) if she has a school email to activate it.

www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office

Use Google Docs/Drive - free and compatible with all platforms

Thanks for the Link to activate the free software, DD has a school email address so we’ll do that tomorrow. I’ve just ordered a laptop (pic attached) so she should be up and running now. Thanks so much for all your help. Really appreciate it

Try Numbers and Pages instead of Excel and Word on the iPad, much more user friendly

Kissing Yeah, for pro use. For a kid's project? Never use Word. Use anything that doesn't shift the contents of the entire page when you resize a picture or change a font size. Horrible thing.

Spoon, I agree with that. For a kid’s project I’d use a free program/app like Libre, Google Docs or anything basically compatible with Word.