Transition from Office for Mac 2011 to Office 365

[IvanH]

I have Office for Mac 2011 Business Edition installed on my daughter's MacBook Air. She's going to university and I intend to buy and install Office 365 University edition to her MacBook Air. I want to know:

1. Can Office for Mac 2011 and Office 365 co-exist on the same Mac?



2. Will Office 354 (Excel) work / behave like Office for Mac 2011 or Office 2013 on a PC? Since Office for Mac 2011 (Excel) doing data entry is much less productive than its Windows 7/8 counterpart versions.

[IvanH]

For part 1 above, I got an update at http://www.macrumors.com/2013/05/07/...ity-bug-fixes/ but not sure if any new progress.

Still waiting for an answer to part 2 above. Please advise.

[macropod]

Office 365 is a 'flavour' of Office 2013; the look & feel of Office 2011 is quite different.

[IvanH]

That's what I want to learn more! Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The Office 365 has Windows or Mac version to download. What you meant "flavour" of Office 2013 is that the Office 365 for Mac is the same as Office 365 for Windows in looks and feels and they all work similar to Office 2013.

Is the Office 365 for Mac web-based?

[macropod]

The 'office 365' designation applies to a range of Office 2013 products; MS seems to use the terms arbitrarily. I am not aware of a Mac version of Office 365, though, unless MS is actually referring to one of its web-based products that way. Either way, I expect you'll find it's closer to the PC version of Office 2013 than the Mac version of Office 2011.

[IvanH]

Originally Posted by macropod

Office 365 is a 'flavour' of Office 2013; the look & feel of Office 2011 is quite different.

Hi Paul,

I'm confused now. I am downloading Office 365 Home Premium 1-month Trial. I look at the file name, it's microsoftoffice2011.dmg.download. So, it's Office 2011 and should be Office for Mac 2011. It's a "flavour" of Office 2011 indicating by the filename.

I am also afraid that if I install it, it will replace my existing Office 2011 version 14.3.9.

Any clarification?

[macropod]

In that case, I strongly recommend not installing the trial; it is indeed liable to wreck your current Office 2011 installation. Evidently, MS is calling all current versions of Office (both 2011 & 2013) 'Office 365'. No wonder users are confused when they seek help - as can be the responders!!

[IvanH]

But if I don't install, I can't get the verification code to trial Office 365...

And I still need to cancel the subscription within one month. okay. just set a reminder for it.

My initial intention was to try new features of Office 365 and see if it worths replacing Office for Mac 2011. Maybe now I should wait for Office for Mac 2014, a rumour that it'll be available on April 2014.

[macropod]

But all it appears you'll be doing in this case is installing a trial copy of Office 2011 - that just happens to be branded 'Office 365' - and quite possibly wiping out your existing Office 2011 installation. At best, the trial install will do nothing.

[IvanH]

Thanks. :-)