Is Microsoft Office 365 cloud only?
Discussion
Is Office 365 only available as cloud only, or can it be downloaded onto a PC?
My 14 yr old son has Office 365 to do his school work on his PC, but it's in the cloud. Is this the way it is now as opposed to having it installed onto the PC? If so, can he log into it on any computer/device to access regardless of whether that be PC or Mac?
My 14 yr old son has Office 365 to do his school work on his PC, but it's in the cloud. Is this the way it is now as opposed to having it installed onto the PC? If so, can he log into it on any computer/device to access regardless of whether that be PC or Mac?
It's both. As in, you can use it online, and also with locally installed apps if you wish.
The thing to remember is your son will benefit from using and becoming familiar with current technologies and methods of work. If the school are using the cloud platform apps of O365 then that's fine. He may not need to know what we did for the last 25-35 years, as it could be irrelevant to his use cases in the future. There's no guarantee locally installed versions of Office apps will be in wide use by the time he enters the workforce. They may be, or they may not be - none of us have a crystal ball, but MS have been trying to push things to their core online services for many years now, but are constantly hampered by local legacy apps on Windows.
The thing to remember is your son will benefit from using and becoming familiar with current technologies and methods of work. If the school are using the cloud platform apps of O365 then that's fine. He may not need to know what we did for the last 25-35 years, as it could be irrelevant to his use cases in the future. There's no guarantee locally installed versions of Office apps will be in wide use by the time he enters the workforce. They may be, or they may not be - none of us have a crystal ball, but MS have been trying to push things to their core online services for many years now, but are constantly hampered by local legacy apps on Windows.
extraT said:
It’s both- login in office as you normally would do, it will take you to the share point/welcome screen Then in the top right you should have a download button.
It may well not do this - lots of schools take the "free for education" O365 tier which doesn't include local copies of the software.As xeny stated - it depends which package the school has subscribed to. If Office 365 A1 then no - it is cloud only.
Full specifications of the Education Tiers here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/acad...
rimaryr2
Full specifications of the Education Tiers here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/acad...
rimaryr2Corso Marche said:
The thing to remember is your son will benefit from using and becoming familiar with current technologies and methods of work. If the school are using the cloud platform apps of O365 then that's fine. He may not need to know what we did for the last 25-35 years, as it could be irrelevant to his use cases in the future. There's no guarantee locally installed versions of Office apps will be in wide use by the time he enters the workforce. They may be, or they may not be - none of us have a crystal ball, but MS have been trying to push things to their core online services for many years now, but are constantly hampered by local legacy apps on Windows.
Yes and no...I agree with the first statement however, this industry is cyclic... As such, it probably won't be long before we go back to locally installed applications.
M
Corso Marche said:
MS have been trying to push things to their core online services for many years now, but are constantly hampered by local legacy apps on Windows.
By 'hampered', I assume you mean offering sub standard cloud apps that have less functionality, poorer performance and render differently (i.e. badly) than the local ones?I'll stick to the local apps for now thanks!
As others have said it depends on the subscription his school use.
To check if downloading and installing the Office apps is possible he can log in here: https://www.office.com/?auth=2&home=1
If he is able to download Office then there will be a button on the top right side saying "Install Office"
To check if downloading and installing the Office apps is possible he can log in here: https://www.office.com/?auth=2&home=1
If he is able to download Office then there will be a button on the top right side saying "Install Office"
xeny said:
extraT said:
It’s both- login in office as you normally would do, it will take you to the share point/welcome screen Then in the top right you should have a download button.
It may well not do this - lots of schools take the "free for education" O365 tier which doesn't include local copies of the software.His O365 account isn't a school one, its one we purchased a couple of years ago with annual renewals. I wasn't aware at the time that his school might provide one free.
I guess we ought to switch to the free school O365 account, but not sure if this will affect any ongoing school work he's done?
Edited by LeadFarmer on Tuesday 9th February 12:14
LeadFarmer said:
I guess we ought to switch to the free school O365 account, but not sure if this will affect any ongoing school work he's done?
If his work is a word document or other office format it should be easy enough to save a local copy and then upload to his school account.Edited by LeadFarmer on Tuesday 9th February 12:14
I didn't know some schools only have an online licence, My Daughters school are O365 for everything including Teams for classes and Outlook for a school email address.
JimbobVFR said:
I didn't know some schools only have an online licence, My Daughters school are O365 for everything including Teams for classes and Outlook for a school email address.
A school can do that for free. Both MS and Google are trying to get customers hooked when they're young.tangerine_sedge said:
By 'hampered', I assume you mean offering sub standard cloud apps that have less functionality, poorer performance and render differently (i.e. badly) than the local ones?
I'll stick to the local apps for now thanks!
I'll stick to the local apps for now thanks!
Very true.
To give them some credit things are improving though.
I listened to an interview last year with one of their dept. leads and the impression was definitely they wanted to move to mostly cloud services, but quite often teams would get split to to other depts. to ensure extended support for legacy versions of Windows, and OS compatibility for legacy programs/applications. Which obviously reduced manpower and resources for what they had been tasked with doing.
But who knows... As somebody else here pointed out things can often be cyclic.
And with more awareness of privacy some people might prefer local-only over cloud services.
I think my sons problem was the school were sending him pdf documents which he either couldn't open, or couldn't edit to complete and return as O365 wasn't physically on his computer.
Would his cloud O365 allow him to upload a document to it, for editing etc?
(I'm also conscious that he's pulling my leg as an excuse not to do his school work
)
Would his cloud O365 allow him to upload a document to it, for editing etc?
(I'm also conscious that he's pulling my leg as an excuse not to do his school work
)LeadFarmer said:
I think my sons problem was the school were sending him pdf documents which he either couldn't open, or couldn't edit to complete and return as O365 wasn't physically on his computer.
Would his cloud O365 allow him to upload a document to it, for editing etc?
(I'm also conscious that he's pulling my leg as an excuse not to do his school work )
The .PDF format is designed for consumption, rather than editing.Would his cloud O365 allow him to upload a document to it, for editing etc?
(I'm also conscious that he's pulling my leg as an excuse not to do his school work
)A .PDF file can be used as a 'form' but you would need special tools to edit the contents of a .PDF.
HTH
M
There's nothing special about opening a PDF. You can literally drag and drop it into a new (empty) tab in the likes of Chrome or Edge to display it. Chrome has options for annotation on the PDF too. You can set whatever browser is on the computer as the default viewer for PDF's so as when one is double clicked it opens for viewing/reading.
Of course if he was accessing them in O365 through a browser then nothing is needed to view them. It's automatic.
For editing PDF's there are both free and paid routes, again some local and some online.
The likes of DocHub will edit PDF's and integrate with his One Drive account on O365, and there's a free version.
The pragmatist in me questions whether he really needed to edit a PDF for schoolwork though.
It's more likely it was a document supplied for review, reading, info, as a guide etc
Of course if he was accessing them in O365 through a browser then nothing is needed to view them. It's automatic.
For editing PDF's there are both free and paid routes, again some local and some online.
The likes of DocHub will edit PDF's and integrate with his One Drive account on O365, and there's a free version.
The pragmatist in me questions whether he really needed to edit a PDF for schoolwork though.
It's more likely it was a document supplied for review, reading, info, as a guide etc
Edited by Corso Marche on Wednesday 10th February 18:21
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