Yesterday, Microsoft announced the availability of Office 2019 to volume licensing customers, promising general retail availability in the coming weeks. Unless you’re a business customer looking to upgrade and you’re not ready to move your Office life to the cloud, this probably won’t matter to you.
What is Office 2019?
Office 2019 is the stand-alone, perpetual license version of Office. It’s just like Office was in the days before the subscription-based Office 365 was in play. You make a one time purchase, and you get to keep on using it as long as you want—on one PC or Mac. The consumer version, Office Home & Business 2019, isn’t available yet, but Microsoft has announced the price—$249.
That sounds okay. Why not avoid a subscription fee for Office 365 and buy a perpetual license? Well, there are a few reasons.
Microsoft Is Clearly Downplaying Office 2019
That screenshot above is from Microsoft’s Office 2019 landing page, and it starts right off with equivocating language: “For customers who aren’t ready for the cloud” is partly straight talk and partly subtle dark pattern manipulation. Microsoft clearly designed Office 2019 as a stop gap for companies that aren’t ready to move to a subscription-based model. Fair enough. But it also starts digging at you a little bit and making it clear that you’re missing out if you’re not going with Office 365.
Scroll down a bit past two whole feature points (“create with ease” and “simplify your work”), and you get to this:
Not trying real hard to sell us on the whole Office 2019 deal, are they?
The truth is that back in May, Microsoft decided to freeze the code for Office 365—a continually updated subscription version of Office—and issue that as Office 2019. It doesn’t even have all the features that Office 356 has right now, just a subset of those features.
It’s pretty clear that going forward, Microsoft is considering Office 365 the real version and Office 2019 pretty much an afterthought required for customers that have resisted the subscription model.
Office 365 Still Offers More Features and Is Probably a Better Deal
So let’s talk a bit about Office 365. Yes, it might sound like a pain to pay yet another subscription fee, but believe it or not, it’s a pretty great deal.
Take the Office 365 Home subscription, for example. It runs $99 per year, and this is what you get with it:
Honestly, it’s hard to find that good a deal just on that much storage space, let alone access to the Office apps. We’ve done a full write up of why Office 365 is such a great deal, so we won’t go into full detail here. But do the math. If you’ve got five or six people who need access to Office on some different PCs, you’re looking at over $1,000 for Office 2019 licenses (a bit less if some of them qualify for the education edition). That’s a solid ten years of Office 365 subscription goodness.
RELATED:Why Microsoft’s Office 365 is a Great Deal
Plus, let’s take a look at how Office 365 compares to Office 2019. Office 2019 is a buy it once, and you’re done until you buy another version deal. You’ll get security updates, but no big feature updates. Office 365, on the other hand, gets updated regularly with new features.
Oh, and one other thing. Office 2019 will only run on Windows 10 and on whatever are the three most recent versions of macOS. Yes, the macOS requirement shifts for some reason. According to Microsoft: “When a new version of macOS is released, the Office 2019 for Mac Operating System requirement becomes the then-current three most recent versions: the new version of macOS and the previous versions.” It’s a little strange.
Office 365, on the other hand, currently works with Windows 7, 8, and 10, but also uses that three-version shifting scheme for macOS.
How Does Office 2019 Compare to Office 2016?
Office 2019 does offer some of the new features incorporated into Office 365 since the release of Office 2016. This includes features like the following:
There are some more features we didn’t list, but it’s not much, honestly. Businesses might be interested in upgrading, especially if they’re using some of those services and need better integration. But for home and small business users, there’s nothing that compelling there. If you’ve already got Office 2016 and it’s working well for you, there’s not much reason to upgrade.
If you’re sporting an older version like 2013 or 2010, then yes, there’s a lot of interesting stuff in the newer versions. But still, subscribing to Office 365 is probably the better bet. You’ll get better support, more features, and a cheaper price tag in the long run.
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Today, we are announcing the general availability of Office 2019 for Windows and Mac. Office 2019 is the next on-premises version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Project, Visio, Access, and Publisher.
Office 365 ProPlus, the cloud-connected version of Office, delivers the most productive and most secure Office experience—with the lowest total cost of ownership for deployment and management. However, for customers who aren’t ready for the cloud, Office 2019 provides new features and updates to the on-premises apps for both users and IT professionals. Like Windows Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) releases, Office 2019 provides a set of valuable enhancements for customers who can’t be cloud-connected or receive regular updates.
The new enhancements in Office 2019 are a subset of a long list of features that have been added to Office 365 ProPlus over the last three years. Office 2019 is a one-time release and won’t receive future feature updates. However, we’ll continue to add new features to Office 365 ProPlus monthly, including innovations in collaboration, artificial intelligence (AI), security, and more.
Office 2019 delivers features across apps to help users create amazing content in less time. In PowerPoint 2019, you can create cinematic presentations with new features like Morph and Zoom. And improved inking features across the apps in Windows—like the roaming pencil case, pressure sensitivity, and tilt effects—allow you to naturally create documents.
Excel 2019 adds powerful new data analysis features, including new formulas and charts and enhancements to PowerPivot.
Word 2019 and Outlook 2019 help you focus on what matters most. Learning Tools, like Read Aloud and Text Spacing, make it easier to engage with your content. Focus Mode blocks out distractions and puts your content front and center. And Focused Inbox moves less important emails out of the way—so you can get straight to taking care of business. For a longer list of the new features in Office 2019, see our FAQs.
Office 2019 also includes new IT value for enhanced security and streamlined administration. We introduced Click-to-Run (C2R), a modern deployment technology, in Office 2013, and it’s now used to deploy and update Office across hundreds of millions of devices worldwide. Ost s1506c 2018 d2 v1.4 4mb. With Office 2019, we’re moving the on-premises versions of Office to C2R to reduce costs and improve security. The advantages of C2R include predictable monthly security updates, up-to-date apps on installation, reduced network consumption through Windows 10 download optimization technology, and an easy upgrade path to Office 365 ProPlus. C2R offers the same enterprise-focused management capabilities as Microsoft Installer (MSI) based products and will also support an in-place upgrade when you move to Office 2019 from older MSI-based products. To learn more, refer to the Office 2019 Click-to-Run FAQ.
The 2019 release of Office products also includes updates to our servers, and in the coming weeks, we will release Exchange Server 2019, Skype for Business Server 2019, SharePoint Server 2019, and Project Server 2019.
Office 2019 is a valuable update for customers who aren’t yet ready for the cloud. And each time we release a new on-premises version of Office, customers ask us if this will be our last. We’re pleased to confirm that we’re committed to another on-premises release in the future. While the cloud offers real benefits in productivity, security, and total cost of ownership, we recognize that each customer is at a different point in their adoption of cloud services. We see the on-premises version of Office as an important part of our commitment to give customers the flexibility they need to move to the cloud at their own pace.
Availability
Best free office software
While Microsoft Office continues to dominate the world of office productivity suites, some users and businesses may be put off by the idea of monthly fees.
Additionally, over the years a number of other companies have launched their own versions of office software, covering documents, spreadsheets, and email, to rival Microsoft's flagship service.
Some of these alternatives come at a more competitive price - but even better, some are free to use. This will almost certainly be of interest to those consumers and businesses looking to minimize costs while retaining the ability to work with office files.
However, not all office suites are created the same, and come with limitations, especially in free versions that come with a paid-for upgrade to unlock features.
Additionally, you also need to bear in mind that formatting can be saved in different ways for the same file type for different programs, which can cause problems when sharing files with users who use different software. Therefore it's important to note if the formatting will be retained accurately.
On top of that, you also need to ask which office software types you actually need. Most packages offer documents and spreadsheets as standard, but some providers may not provide database or presentation software in a bundle, so it's important to check what you need against what providers will actually supply.
Regardless of all that, here we'll list the best in free office software as alternatives to Microsoft Office, for both home and business users.
1. LibreOffice
Everything you could want from an office suite, fully compatible with Microsoft formats and totally free to use – even commercially
Huge software suite
Completely free
LibreOffice is so good, you'll wonder why you ever paid for office software. It's compatible with all Microsoft document formats, and has almost every feature you'll find in the latest versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
The suite contains six programs to cover every common office task: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base. The last three are tools you won't find in many other free office suites, and are designed for vector diagrams, mathematical functions and databases, respectively. The latter is particularly useful; free alternatives to Microsoft Access are hard to find.
LibreOffice is an open source project maintained by a huge and enthusiastic community of volunteers constantly working to improve stability and add new features. There's a great selection of extensions and templates to make it even more flexible, and it's free for businesses as well as home users.
LibreOffice is a fork of Apache OpenOffice, and the two are extremely similar, but we’d opt for LibreOffice thanks to its more frequent update schedule and more modern interface. The latest release (version 6) adds a huge array of new features and fixes, including more interface customization options, improved file import and export compatibility, and new online help pages.
LibreOffice is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, but there are no official mobile versions available except for a document viewer for Android. It has some editing features, but they're experimental and we wouldn't advise relying on them.
2. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides
For working across platforms and sharing documents, Google's excellent collection of online office apps is hard to beat
Cross-platform
Mobile apps available
If you work collaboratively, or switch between a PC and a Mac, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides should be your first port of call.
For anyone who's already deep into the Android/Google ecosystem, this suite will be a natural choice. The three key tools run happily in any web browser, and are available as mobile apps for Apple and Android devices.
Google's free office suite doesn't offer the advanced tools you'll find in desktop software like LibreOffice (there are no pivot tables, for example, and there's no database tool) but everything is laid out in a clear, logical way and all your files will be saved and synced automatically so you don't have to worry about transfers and backups.
The chief disadvantage of Docs, Sheets and Slides is that opening files created using other office software is a cumbersome process and files aren't always converted perfectly.
Word 2019 Free
This is partly because Google's office tools use web fonts rather than ones stored locally on your device, and partly because Microsoft documents sometimes contain features not supported by Google. If that's a dealbreaker for you, read on..
3. Microsoft Office Online
Microsoft is taking the fight to Google with slimmed-down versions of all its usual applications, available to use free online
Works with OneDrive
Microsoft's desktop software carries a subscription fee, but the company has noticed the threat posed by G Suite and created its own set of free online apps.
Microsoft Office Online looks and works just like its desktop equivalent, and although advanced tools like pivot tables are out of reach, but aren’t offered by Google either.
If you generally use Microsoft document formats, Office Online is a brilliant choice. Unlike Google's free office suite, it doesn't need to convert your files before you can work on them, and you can share them easily through your Microsoft OneDrive account. Just log in using your Microsoft account (the same one you use to log into Windows 10) and you're ready to go.
There's a version of Office Online for Chrome, plus mobile editions of Office for iOS and Android.
4. WPS Office Free
A feature-packed free office suite for Windows, Linux and Android
Supports Microsoft file formats
Contains some ads
WPS Office Free is a slimmed down version of a premium office suite, but you'd hardly know it. Each of its three programs looks just as slick as the latest versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and is packed with just as many features.
File format support is excellent, and you can save your work in native Microsoft formats for easy sharing with Office users. There's no database software, but WPS Office comes with an excellent free PDF reader that's a great replacement for Windows' built-in app.
There's the occasional ad, but these are few and far between. They certainly won't get in the way of your work, and you'll easily forget that everything in this suite is completely free.
There are versions of WPS Office Free for Windows and Linux systems, as well as apps for Android devices, but Apple device users will need to look elsewhere.
5. Polaris Office
A cross-platform office suite that keeps your work in the cloud
Includes 1GB cloud storage
If you own a Samsung phone, you might already be familiar with the mobile version of Polaris Office. This cross-platform free office software is available for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, and comes pre-installed on some Samsung handsets. It’s compatible with all Microsoft document formats, and offers a slick ribbon-based interface with some basic customization options.
Take care if you choose to install Windows version, you’ll see various additional pieces of bundled software, which could potentially include a browser extension from McAfee called WebAdvisor, a market research tool called PremierOpinion, and an antivirus suite. You can decline all of these – just keep an eye out.
You’ll then need to sign in with Facebook or Google, or create an account. This is necessary because Polaris Office is a cloud-based service. Your free Polaris account comes with 60MB monthly data transfer, 1GB cloud storage, and can be used across three devices (one desktop and two mobile). If that’s not enough space, you can connect Polaris Office to Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, Microsoft OneDrive and Amazon Cloud Drive – or save work locally to your device.
Upgrading to a premium Polaris account gives you access to extra features including a PDF editor, removes ads, and the ability to search within a document.
6. SoftMaker FreeOffice
A free version of a premium suite, with most pro features intact
Supports Microsoft formats
No thesaurus
Like WPS Office Free, SoftMaker FreeOffice provides analogs for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint (TextMaker, PlanMaker and Presentations respectively).
As with all the free office suites in this roundup, there's support for Microsoft file formats from 1997 onwards. It also offers effortless conversion to both PDF and Epub formats, which is a welcome addition.
Unfortunately, some key features are exclusive to the premium version of the software. Some of these (like tabbed browsing) are nice to have but non-essential, but the lack of a thesaurus is a real drawback for anyone who writes on a regular basis.
FreeOffice doesn't look quite as smart as WPS Office, but if you dislike the Microsoft ribbon and find it unintuitive then you'll prefer the slightly more old fashioned approach to navigation.
7. Open365
Complete open source solution
Open365 is more than just an office suite – it's a full cloud desktop that drags in a selection of great open source (usually desktop-based) software and puts it right in your browser. It includes the key components of the LibreOffice suite (Writer, Calc and Impress) along with Photoshop-esque image editor GIMP, Linux email package Kontact, and cloud storage by Seafile. Everything the desktop versions of those packages do can be done here, and every format they support is supported.
There's a desktop client to handle file transfers and mirroring your cloud storage to your hard drive, although you'll still need to run the software itself in-browser. Being full-on desktop software it's reasonably heavy both in terms of load times and the stress it puts on your system.
But get your whole team on board and its collaborative tools could make this an essential component of your workflow, particularly if you're hotdesking or using a variety of hardware.
8. Zoho Workplace
A genuinely exciting alternative to Google Docs
Can be daunting at time
While Google Docs is, thanks to the strength of its brand, probably more widely used, Zoho's online office solution is very good in its own right. It's certainly closer to a desktop office package, and it's strong enough to have attracted businesses like the BBC and Nike as regular users.
Zoho's new-look word processor (which ditches the classic Word-style interface in favour of a formatting sidebar) is very well-presented and capable of producing professional-looking docs, and it has a sterling spreadsheet and reasonable presentation package alongside it.
They're just the tip of the iceberg, however – Zoho Workplace includes a powerful site creation tool, a file management solution and many collaborative tools. Some are on the simplistic side, so they'll likely not replace anything you might already have in place, but if you're starting out as a small business Zoho is probably a good jumping-off point.
Microsoft Office 2019 is the current version of Microsoft Office, a productivity suite, succeeding Office 2016. It was released to general availability for Windows 10 and for macOS on September 24, 2018.[1] Some features that had previously been restricted to Office 365 subscribers are available in this release.[6]
History[edit]
On April 27, 2018, Microsoft released Office 2019 Commercial Preview for Windows 10.[7] On June 12, 2018, Microsoft released a preview for macOS.[8]
New features[edit]
Office 2019 includes many of the features previously published via Office 365, along with improved inking features, LaTeX support in Word, new animation features in PowerPoint including the morph and zoom features, and new formulas and charts in Excel for data analysis[citation needed].
OneNote is absent from the suite as the UWP version of OneNote bundled with Windows 10 replaces it. OneNote 2016 can be installed as an optional feature on the Office Installer.[9][10][11]
For Mac users, Focus Mode will be brought to Word, 2D maps will be brought to Excel and new Morph transitions, SVG support and 4K video exports will be coming to PowerPoint, among other features.
Despite being released in the same month, the new Office user interface (including their new icons) in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook is only available to Office 365 subscribers, not perpetual Office 2019 licensees.[12][13][14] The Office 2019 user interface retains the Metro design language from Office 2016, except that the Microsoft account picture is circular.
Games like zeus master of olympus. Zeus: Master of Olympus is a City-Building video game created by Impression Games and published by Sierra Entertainment. The game supports Single-player. Similar games to Zeus: Master of Olympus. Currently being developed by Uncasual Games. Starting in the Neolithic era, you will have to guide your people. Aug 21, 2017 - I used to play this game many years ago. I really like strategy games but specially for the economic/building part so this is one of my favourite. May 5, 2017 - Honestly, no game is like Zeus, besides the sequel, Poseidon. But if I had to choose I'd say Civilization. The game isn't quite the build your city. Similar Games. The Settlers. Lethis - Path of Progress. June 25, 2015. November 17, 2011. August 30, 2011. Majesty 2: Battles of Ardania. March 9, 2011. Majesty 2: Monster Kingdom. March 9, 2011. Tropico 3: Absolute Power. May 14, 2010. Majesty 2: Kingmaker.
Deployment[edit]
Office 2019 requires Windows 10, Windows Server 2019 or macOS Sierra and later.[15] macOS installations can be acquired from the Microsoft website or the Mac App Store.[16] For Office 2013 and 2016, various editions containing the client apps were available in both Click-To-Run (inspired by Microsoft App-V) and traditional Windows Installer setup formats. For Office 2019, the client apps only have a Click-to-Run installer and only the server apps have the traditional MSI installer. The Click-To-Run version has a smaller footprint; in case of Microsoft Office 2019 Pro Plus, the product requires 10 GB less than the MSI version of Office 2016 Pro Plus.[17]
Office 2019 will receive five years of mainstream support, but unlike Office 2016 which gets five years of extended support, Office 2019 only gets two. Mainstream support ends on October 10, 2023, while extended support ends on October 14, 2025.[15]
See also[edit]References[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Microsoft_Office_2019&oldid=903596125'
What is Office 2019?
Office 2019 is the stand-alone, perpetual license version of Office. It’s just like Office was in the days before the subscription-based Office 365 was in play. You make a one time purchase, and you get to keep on using it as long as you want—on one PC or Mac. The consumer version, Office Home & Business 2019, isn’t available yet, but Microsoft has announced the price—$249.
That sounds okay. Why not avoid a subscription fee for Office 365 and buy a perpetual license? Well, there are a few reasons.
Microsoft Is Clearly Downplaying Office 2019
That screenshot above is from Microsoft’s Office 2019 landing page, and it starts right off with equivocating language: “For customers who aren’t ready for the cloud” is partly straight talk and partly subtle dark pattern manipulation. Microsoft clearly designed Office 2019 as a stop gap for companies that aren’t ready to move to a subscription-based model. Fair enough. But it also starts digging at you a little bit and making it clear that you’re missing out if you’re not going with Office 365.
Scroll down a bit past two whole feature points (“create with ease” and “simplify your work”), and you get to this:
Not trying real hard to sell us on the whole Office 2019 deal, are they?
The truth is that back in May, Microsoft decided to freeze the code for Office 365—a continually updated subscription version of Office—and issue that as Office 2019. It doesn’t even have all the features that Office 356 has right now, just a subset of those features.
It’s pretty clear that going forward, Microsoft is considering Office 365 the real version and Office 2019 pretty much an afterthought required for customers that have resisted the subscription model.
Office 365 Still Offers More Features and Is Probably a Better Deal
So let’s talk a bit about Office 365. Yes, it might sound like a pain to pay yet another subscription fee, but believe it or not, it’s a pretty great deal.
Take the Office 365 Home subscription, for example. It runs $99 per year, and this is what you get with it:
Honestly, it’s hard to find that good a deal just on that much storage space, let alone access to the Office apps. We’ve done a full write up of why Office 365 is such a great deal, so we won’t go into full detail here. But do the math. If you’ve got five or six people who need access to Office on some different PCs, you’re looking at over $1,000 for Office 2019 licenses (a bit less if some of them qualify for the education edition). That’s a solid ten years of Office 365 subscription goodness.
RELATED:Why Microsoft’s Office 365 is a Great Deal
Plus, let’s take a look at how Office 365 compares to Office 2019. Office 2019 is a buy it once, and you’re done until you buy another version deal. You’ll get security updates, but no big feature updates. Office 365, on the other hand, gets updated regularly with new features.
Oh, and one other thing. Office 2019 will only run on Windows 10 and on whatever are the three most recent versions of macOS. Yes, the macOS requirement shifts for some reason. According to Microsoft: “When a new version of macOS is released, the Office 2019 for Mac Operating System requirement becomes the then-current three most recent versions: the new version of macOS and the previous versions.” It’s a little strange.
Office 365, on the other hand, currently works with Windows 7, 8, and 10, but also uses that three-version shifting scheme for macOS.
How Does Office 2019 Compare to Office 2016?
Office 2019 does offer some of the new features incorporated into Office 365 since the release of Office 2016. This includes features like the following:
There are some more features we didn’t list, but it’s not much, honestly. Businesses might be interested in upgrading, especially if they’re using some of those services and need better integration. But for home and small business users, there’s nothing that compelling there. If you’ve already got Office 2016 and it’s working well for you, there’s not much reason to upgrade.
If you’re sporting an older version like 2013 or 2010, then yes, there’s a lot of interesting stuff in the newer versions. But still, subscribing to Office 365 is probably the better bet. You’ll get better support, more features, and a cheaper price tag in the long run.
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