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?

[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!