Office for Win 8; Free?

[Cudzoziemiec]

My laptop's keyboard is malfunctioning. It might be repairable but right now I'm going to use a spare one I've got. Only problem is that doesn't have Word etc on it. I only got a one-pc key for this, so I'll need a new one. Seems there are loads of free ones on the net. Which strikes me as odd. Are they dodgy in some way? Or is this just cos Microsoft is no longer supporting Office for Windows 8 (which is what I have) or something similar?

Random example: https://www.filehorse.com/download-microsoft-word/

[Polar Bear]

Libre Office.

[Ham]

My laptop's keyboard is malfunctioning. It might be repairable but right now I'm going to use a spare one I've got. Only problem is that doesn't have Word etc on it. I only got a one-pc key for this, so I'll need a new one. Seems there are loads of free ones on the net. Which strikes me as odd. Are they dodgy in some way? Or is this just cos Microsoft is no longer supporting Office for Windows 8 (which is what I have) or something similar?

Random example: https://www.filehorse.com/download-microsoft-word/

Key word - TRIAL
December, 19th 2019  -  4.1 GB  -  Trial     

(AFAIK, there are no free versions of M$ Office)

[TimC]

There may not be free copies, but Office Professional Plus 2019 is available for £15-20 online.

[hubner]

I think there's a free online version.

https://office.live.com/start/Word.aspx

But best to move to the open non-proprietry odt format and use Libre Office.

[DaveJ]

You can transfer Word licences between machines.  So if you have an existing licence, you can move it to the spare machine.  It is a transfer, so if you do this, it will stop working on the original machine.  What version of Word do you have?

If you are not paying close to the list price for the software, then it is almost certainly pirated.  Quite often the pirated activation code works initially,  but eventually Microsoft notice that they never issued it, and it doesn't work again.  Even if you are paying close to the list price, you have to be careful that what you are buying is genuine.  I steer clear of eBay and Amazon Marketplace sellers when buying software.

Libre Office is good, and its free, and there is absolutely no need to move to the .ODT format.  Just change the default save formats to .dox/.xlsx/.pptx.   Its not good if you use macros, or if precision positioning or exact selection of fonts is important to you (but then you're probably not using Word if it is).

[Cudzoziemiec]

You can transfer Word licences between machines.  So if you have an existing licence, you can move it to the spare machine.  It is a transfer, so if you do this, it will stop working on the original machine.  What version of Word do you have?

I did not know this! Shall investigate, thanks.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Libre Office is good, and its free, and there is absolutely no need to move to the .ODT format.  Just change the default save formats to .dox/.xlsx/.pptx.   Its not good if you use macros, or if precision positioning or exact selection of fonts is important to you (but then you're probably not using Word if it is).

What's important is that I can edit documents sent to me as .doc or .docx and that other people can edit what I send them. And very occasionally that I can save things as .pdf Once in a while I even need to open a Powerpoint but thankfully I never have to sit through a presentation!

[Cudzoziemiec]

Well, Libre Office works more than it doesn't.

[Kim]

Well, Libre Office works more than it doesn't.

That's a pretty good summary of it, TBH.

I've never found its word processor to be that bad, mainly because if it isn't up to the job, Word generally isn't either.  Compatibility seems passable for most purposes.

The spreadsheet fails on account of being Not Real Excel (no VBA macros, for example), and the presentation package just fails.  I haven't used any of the others.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Except it's bizarrely offset one of six text boxes at the start. Curious and slightly irritating.

[Cudzoziemiec]

You can transfer Word licences between machines.  So if you have an existing licence, you can move it to the spare machine.  It is a transfer, so if you do this, it will stop working on the original machine.  What version of Word do you have?

I did not know this! Shall investigate, thanks.

Seems mine is "Office Home 2013 Product key card" and is not transferable. Boo hiss!

[mzjo]

If you need to just read a Powerpoint Microsoft do Powerpoint Reader for the job which is free (also, I think, Excell Reader, although I haven't used that).

I did my Powerpoints for an industrial techi qualification using Open Office, Libre Office and checking with Powerpoint Reader before they were presented on a laptop using Office 2013 - no problems!

I have a desktop with Office (2007 on W10 - but it all came for free in a flat clearnce!) but I don't use it, can't get my head round it! Libre Office for me - it understands simpletons!

[DaveJ]

Seems mine is "Office Home 2013 Product key card" and is not transferable. Boo hiss!

I think it is transferable, or at least its transferable to another machine.  When it was installed, you registered the product key with Microsoft.  So you need to log in to the Microsoft account that you registered it to at https://office.com.  In the "Account" data it should have details of the software, and should allow you to install it.  When you come to activate it, it'll ask for the account details, tell you that it's already in use, and give you the option to deactivate the old install and use the licence for the machine that you are installing it on.

[aidan.f]

LibreOffice writer produced pdf's have far less bloat than MS ones do  - but then who cares about filesize these days?

[Lightning Phil]

LibreOffice writer produced pdf's have far less bloat than MS ones do  - but then who cares about filesize these days?

The audax uk route sheet loader for events

[Cudzoziemiec]

Libre's lack of caret characters in find and replace is inconvenient. I'll have to go through the whole script to find where a certain expression occurs at the end of a paragraph and replace only those instances manually. As it occurs every other line, this is a pain

[pcolbeck]

It does have caret.

If you use the regex option is search and replace you can use caret.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Okay, found some stuff online. They certainly doesn't behave in the way I expected them to. Can't find a non-breaking hyphen either!

[Cudzoziemiec]

I've discovered a weak point of Libre Office: page numbering. Can't get it to work at all with documents originating in MS Word. It just replaces them all with the words 'page number'. This is not helpful.

[vorsprung]

I had to install the Office 365 thing on my work Mac because they have flipped the email over to MS Exchange and MS Outlook is now the approved way to get Mail and calendar

Anyway, after doing this opening .doc/.docx files use MS Word

Unbelievably slow to open.  I am only using it to view stuff so no idea how well it works for editing

I have a 2-year-old Macbook Pro with 16GB RAM.  Libre Office isn't exactly speedy to load but Office 365 MS Word is in a new league

[ian]

It's not the sprightliest set of applications, but they don't seem excessively slow to load on my older, more forgetful Macbook.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'd agree that Word takes an age to open. Libre Office seems quick enough.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Turns out that LO has the rather bizarre option to turn page numbers on and off. When they're off you just see the text "page number". I'm not sure what the point of this is, but presumably it's useful to someone.