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Microsoft office home & student - 1 mac 1 person?

I’m looking for office to install on my mac (catalina) on a one time purchase that our family of four can use. Apples sells home & student for 1 mac but on microsoft web site it states 1 person. Does this mean a different user on the mac cannot use it?

Posted on Feb 15, 2020 10:25 AM

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Posted on Feb 15, 2020 10:46 AM

If you have licensing questions about Microsoft software, you’ll want to ask the folks at Microsoft Support.


I’d expect anything involving the Office 365 subscription to be per-user, and the full retail Office 2019 purchase directly from Microsoft or from a reseller to be per-box. Any discounted Office offerings are probably going to be per-user. But you’ll want to confirm that with Microsoft.


Or... Use LibreOffice. It’s free, and it deals with pretty much all of what Office can and does offer. Including dealing with a documents from a few older versions of Office that current Office can’t, based on another recent discussion around here. The Apple iWork apps can also read and write many Office documents, as well.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 15, 2020 10:46 AM in response to racalmvi

If you have licensing questions about Microsoft software, you’ll want to ask the folks at Microsoft Support.


I’d expect anything involving the Office 365 subscription to be per-user, and the full retail Office 2019 purchase directly from Microsoft or from a reseller to be per-box. Any discounted Office offerings are probably going to be per-user. But you’ll want to confirm that with Microsoft.


Or... Use LibreOffice. It’s free, and it deals with pretty much all of what Office can and does offer. Including dealing with a documents from a few older versions of Office that current Office can’t, based on another recent discussion around here. The Apple iWork apps can also read and write many Office documents, as well.

Feb 15, 2020 11:52 AM in response to racalmvi

Don’t know what to tell you, then.

Microsoft licensing is gnarly. Always has been. But it’s on Microsoft to explain all that, and not others.

Based on what’s been posted by Microsoft, Office 2019 is per-box, and Office 365 per-user and subscription.

Wouldn’t surprise me to learn it’s all or soon per-user now, as that’s the path Microsoft has been on for a while.

Microsoft is on the software-as-a-service/SaaS software-rental recurring-revenue sales path for a number of years.

Wouldn’t entirely surprise me if Office 2019 were the last non-subscription offering, too.

LibreOffice. iWork. Which is what I’ve been using for many years, and swapping docs with Office users.

Or rent Office via 365 and only for when you need it, if you want or need to learn about or need to use Office.

But if Microsoft can’t answer this?

Feb 15, 2020 3:01 PM in response to racalmvi

Look into the Free LibreOffice, it handles MS Office files…


https://www.libreoffice.org/


Apple macOS (Mac OS X)

The software and hardware prerequisites for installing on a Apple macOS computer are as follows:

• LibreOffice 6.3.x: macOS 10.10 (Yosemite) or higher

• LibreOffice 6.2.x: macOS 10.9 (Mavericks) or higher

• Intel processor

• 512 MB RAM

• Up to 800 MB available hard disk space

• 1024x768 graphic device with 256 colors (higher resolution recommended)

It is a recommended best practice to back-up your system and data before you remove or install software.

Notes:

• For certain features of the software - but not most - Java is required. Java is notably required for Base.

• Due to an issue, there are the following restrictions with Java: on macOS 10.10 and newer, JRE isn't found, JDK is required

• LibreOffice 4.3 can still run on OS X 10.6+, but please understand that this support ended when 4.3 was retired on May 27, 2015.

https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/system-requirements/#Apple


Feature Comparison of LibreOffice v6.3 with Office 365/Office 2019 for Mac

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_LibreOffice_-_Microsoft_Office

Microsoft office home & student - 1 mac 1 person?

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