Do you have to pay to use Excel?

[angels95]

I have a laptop which I bought in 2011 but it's falling to bits, so I am looking to replace it this weekend.

The one I have now has Excel which I regularly use but have never had to pay for, but all the new ones say you need a subscription to Office 365, which from what I can work out you have to pay for annually.

Would I have to pay an annual fee to get Excel on a new laptop? Or could I still use Excel without it?

[Pints]

I don't know the answer to your question, but is OpenOffice an option for you?

[21TonyK]

You would need a subscription for Office on your new laptop.

There are free alternatives (clones) out there if you are not stuck on Excel.

[essayer]

What edition of Excel (Office?) is on your laptop? If it's not OEM - i.e you purchased it separately - you can reinstall it via
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/...
With the product key that was on the box / DVD

If it was OEM then strictly speaking it can only be installed on one machine ever and shouldn't be transferred to another

[sgrimshaw]

21TonyK said:

You would need a subscription for Office on your new laptop.

There are free alternatives (clones) out there if you are not stuck on Excel.

You do not need a subscription for Office, you can buy a license for Home and Student (for example) which is a one off cost:

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing-accessories...

[sgrimshaw]

essayer said:

What edition of Excel (Office?) is on your laptop? If it's not OEM - i.e you purchased it separately - you can reinstall it via
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/...
With the product key that was on the box / DVD

If it was OEM then strictly speaking it can only be installed on one machine ever and shouldn't be transferred to another

If you don't have the product key the belearc advisor will show you it (free)

https://www.belarc.com/products_belarc_advisor

[angels95]

Pints said:

I don't know the answer to your question, but is OpenOffice an option for you?

Never heard of it until now, but just done a bit of research on Google. Would probably do the job but would I be able to transfer my spreadsheets over from Excel?

21TonyK said:

You would need a subscription for Office on your new laptop.

In that case I would rather struggle on with this hateful thing than line the pockets of a multi-billionaire!

essayer said:

What edition of Excel (Office?) is on your laptop? If it's not OEM - i.e you purchased it separately - you can reinstall it via
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/...
With the product key that was on the box / DVD

If it was OEM then strictly speaking it can only be installed on one machine ever and shouldn't be transferred to another

Mine is Office 2010. I have found the box but mine is a key card without a disc.

It says the product key card is valid for "1 User / 1 preloaded PC only", whereas for the disc (which I don't have) it says for "1 Household / 3 PCs".

Would this mean the product key card that I have is not reusable?

sgrimshaw said:

You do not need a subscription for Office, you can buy a license for Home and Student (for example) which is a one off cost:

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing-accessories...

Might resort to this if no luck with the above, as it will be cheaper in the long run than buying multiple annual subscriptions. Still reluctant to spend £100 on something I already have when the laptops I'm looking at are around £200!




Really appreciate all the responses. As you can probably tell this is all alien to me but I have a far better understanding now than I did half an hour ago!

[Pints]

According to this link, the latest version of OpenOffice can deal with XLSX files (assuming that's what you're using).

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-open-xls...

If you're using XLS, OpenOffice will deal with those just fine.

[Dolf Stoppard]

Not sure how complicated your spreadsheets are or how often you work on them, but could be worth considering Google Sheets. I use it at home and it's great. Syncs across different platforms, all the functionality I need and it's free! Making the move over is also easy. Open the Excel sheet. Save it. Done.

[mybrainhurts]

Libre Office = free

[ZesPak]

mybrainhurts said:

Libre Office = free

This,

It's a seperation from OpenOffice and imho the better product.

I use google sheets for some quick and simple sheets, but don't consider it a good competitor to a real desktop application yet.

[Fore Left]

You could use this utility to recover the product key in case you need to reinstall it

Nirsoft is a perfectly safe site by the way. Very good if you need to install lots of software in one go.

[spants]

ZesPak said:

mybrainhurts said:

Libre Office = free

This,

It's a seperation from OpenOffice and imho the better product.

I use google sheets for some quick and simple sheets, but don't consider it a good competitor to a real desktop application yet.

I agree - moved a charity over to this. They were inexperienced users but manage just fins.
Set the default save format to excel and most people would not know the difference

[gr1340]

spants said:

I agree - moved a charity over to this. They were inexperienced users but manage just fins.
Set the default save format to excel and most people would not know the difference

Sounds fishy to me.

[Jimmy Recard]

gr1340 said:

Sounds fishy to me.

Stop carping on!

I'm tench from herring it

[NoIP]

Dolf Stoppard said:

Not sure how complicated your spreadsheets are or how often you work on them, but could be worth considering Google Sheets. I use it at home and it's great. Syncs across different platforms, all the functionality I need and it's free! Making the move over is also easy. Open the Excel sheet. Save it. Done.

This is what I did years ago when faced with an outdated Excel xls and needed to buy whatever the current MS Office was at the time. Just go to your google Drive, click Sheets, click Blank sheet and go to import and select your sheet and it'll do the rest. I wish I'd done it years prior as it's the perfect solution for most home users. I've got about 250k entries on my biggest worksheet spread across 6 sheets and 3 "importrange" linked sheets attached to it. Takes about 10 seconds to load the initial sheet but once done every cell change is done instantly.

[mybrainhurts]

Eeee lads, it were all different when I were a lad.

First available spreadsheet had to run on the mainframe, came on a tape, was very basic and cost £12,000

[loudlashadjuster]

Libre Office all the way.

Nowadays Excel is only really required for advanced users (automation, integration, scripting, large datasets/PP etc.), or for those with a real aversion to a gentle and short learning curve to adapt to its slight differences.

Only way I'd recommend a casual home user buy Office is via the Home User Program where you can get a perpetual license for the Home version for a bargaintastic £9.95

https://www.microsofthup.com/

Your employer needs to be signed up to this however, which means a £££ enterprise license on their part. Daft not to take this up if it's offered though, 30 seconds to check on that website.

[Pints]

spants said:

ZesPak said:

mybrainhurts said:

Libre Office = free

This,

It's a seperation from OpenOffice and imho the better product.

I use google sheets for some quick and simple sheets, but don't consider it a good competitor to a real desktop application yet.

I agree - moved a charity over to this. They were inexperienced users but manage just fins.
Set the default save format to excel and most people would not know the difference

Downloaded Libre yesterday and very impressed. Will be replacing OpenOffice for me.

[AGK]

angels95 said:

Mine is Office 2010. I have found the box but mine is a key card without a disc.

It says the product key card is valid for "1 User / 1 preloaded PC only", whereas for the disc (which I don't have) it says for "1 Household / 3 PCs".

Would this mean the product key card that I have is not reusable?

Put your code in here and see if it lets you download the installer. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/...

If it doesn't activate then just ring the automated line with the installation ID and it will generate a code for the it.