The new version is an incrementa

The new version is an incremental upgrade that adds speed and some ingenious convenience features but otherwise works almost exactly like earlier versions, so there's no big learning curve for upgraders. Perhaps the biggest change isnt in the software itself. In a welcome nod to the trend toward distraction-free writing apps, Office 2021 adds a Focus mode for when you're trying to concentrate on your work. Excel has formulas that immediately return an array of values, a function that assigns names to the results of calculations so that you can use those names in a formula, a function that returns the relative position of an item in a range of cell, and customized views for individual sheets. If you use a mouse, Words multiple-pane interface works beautifully: Just click in the Proofing pane and correct your spelling and grammar. The clock is ticking on the limited-time deal, so dont miss out. So, if youve not yet moved over onto Windows 11, youll still be able to use Teams on Windows 10 or macOS.

PCMag, PCMag.com and PC Magazine are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. And if you can't program Word to do what you want, you can probably find what you want in the many of macros others have posted online. LET assigns names to calculation results, allowing them to be stored inside a formula.

The essentials to get it all done.

Of course, macOS users can use Apples iWork suite in desktop, iOS, or browser-based versions, with real-time collaboration available in all of them. If you're working in an Apple-only environment, then Keynote is the obvious choice among presentation apps. At least, thats the way to make the switch from subscription-based Office to perpetual-license Office if all goes well. Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox. The display of third-party trademarks and trade names on this site does not necessarily indicate any affiliation or the endorsement of PCMag. If youre using an older, non-subscription version of Office, you may see a pop-up offering you the chance to try or buy the new version. What can individuals and businesses expect? If youre looking for the Master Document feature, which lets you build a large document from separately editable chapters, the feature-search field doesn't find it unless you already know that you need to change the View setting from Print Layout to Outline first. Except for the newly slotted-in features, Office 2021 looks mostly like the 2019 and 2016 versions. Mac users have Apples Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, but you need to export the documents in Office formats in order to share them with Windows or Linux users (unless you force them to use the iWork web apps, that is). The most popular rival products are the free Google Workspace (aka Google Docs), which operates only in a web browser or as a mobile appwith all the security risks that go with storing your documents in the cloud; and the free open-source LibreOffice, which operates only as a desktop application. The deal is back. Weve previously witnessed similar full real-time collaborative editing in Word 2019.

Your email address will not be published. This version doesn't include Outlook. This problem is so common that Microsoft actually offers an Office uninstall support tool (search for it if you need it) thats supposed to scrub away the 365 version. XLOOKUP will help you find anything you need row by row. After I tried uninstalling Microsoft 365, Excel continued to insist that I had the 365 version. If youre one of the relatively small number of users who needs to use 32-bit Windows because you have applications that wont work in 64-bit versions, youll want to know that Office 2021 includes a 32-bit version, and the setup program will automatically install it on a 32-bit Windows system.

(This second cell is the one where you create an XLOOKUP formula.). Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology. If youre already using Office apps through a Microsoft 365 subscription, you wont find any surprises in Office 2021. When you type a search term into the new search field, a new tab appears on the ribbon that lets you narrow your search to specific senders, recipients, and other criteria. The new Translator for Outlook add-in converts text among over 70 languages. A one-time purchase installed on one PC for use at work. When you buy the perpetual license version, you get security updates every few months, but you dont get the monthly jolt of new features that Microsoft provides to subscribers. The widget below takes you to it. So, whats new? Keep in mind, too, that you'll probably need to export your Numbers worksheets to Excel format if you plan to share them. It makes sense to uninstall the old version after installing the new one. Office Professional Plus 2021 is for growing small businesses who want the classic Office apps plus Outlook, Publisher and Access. Apple's Numbers is terrific for innovative-looking graphic intensive spreadsheets, and makes many features easier to use than Excel does, but, overall, Excel is far more powerful.

If youre not signed in to your Microsoft account, simply click the Change License button and find the link that says Enter a product key instead. For example, you may have a column that lists stock symbols and another column that lists current prices of the same stocks. Free professional help from our Software Specialists, BlogsContactTerms and ConditionsReturn TermsMy Account, 2021 SoftwareLicense4u More About Our Products, Be the first to review Office 2021 Professional Plus (Windows). Advanced users get to use the most full-featured programming language in any word-processor, the same Visual Basic for Applications usable in Excel and PowerPoint. Once you upgrade, you can get back to work quickly, yet you'll also find enough new touches for it to be worth the money. Microsoft Word is a mix of unique power and unique annoyances, but its file format is only one that you can exchange with almost anyone, no matter what operating system they useincluding Linux, where LibreOffice can open and save in Microsoft formats. If youre a corporate IT manager or just dont like subscriptions, youll prefer the perpetual-license version. Get lifetime access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more. Outlook is a mature appsome users find it more bloated with features than it needs to beand it hasnt changed much in the new version. Excel has always outclassed every other spreadsheet app for speed and power, and that doesn't change in the latest update. None of these new features are revolutionary. PowerPoint lets you replay animations in which you apply freehand inking to a slide and adds a feature that lets you create a link to a specific slide and send the link to a colleague, with an option to let them edit it. Greater selection of stock images and icons. If youre already running the 2016 or 2019 version, and you dont really need these new 2021 improvements, you don't need to spend money on the new version. Office Professional Plus 2021 is available for Windows users, but the same savings and price can land you Office Home and Business 2021 if youre a Mac user. Be quick if you want to catch it, and note the disclaimer on the deal page that your license may take up to 48-hours to arrive in your inbox. One other notable new feature for shared workbooks makes it easy for you to create a custom sheet view that displays only the data you want to work with, while other people working on the same workbook at the same time can have their own custom views. Yet another new feature inspired by the revolution in home working Office 2021integrates Microsoft Teams chat and video features throughout the software. The 2021 version seems slightly faster than the 2019 version when you're working with large, complex worksheets, but the major reason to get the new version is its expanded feature set. Microsoft doesnt remove the older version when you install the new one, however, and your system can get confused over which version to use. Such minor complaints aside, Word outclasses everything in competition in ways that benefit both beginners and advanced users. The package includes the programs youre likely to need often, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Then in the next dialog, if youre already logged in to your Microsoft account and the email address of your account is displayed in the dialog box, click on Use a different account, and then find the very small type that says Enter a product key instead. If you like the idea of a monthly helping of new features and need the latest and greatestalong with a terabyte of online storage for backup and syncingthen get the subscription version. For those who want deeper dives on the components, we'll be writing full reviews of several of the bigger ones as we use them over the coming months. And touch-screen users can mark up emails with digital ink. This deal dispels those myths. If youre trying to switch from a subscription-based Microsoft 365 installation to a perpetual license, expect to take a few extra steps. For the first time, Office ships with Microsoft Teams, Microsofts answer to Slack. Required fields are marked *. When you try to buy Office 2021, Microsoft makes it clear that it wants you to pay for a subscription to Microsoft 365, rather than buy a perpetual license. Outlook can translate messages into more than 70 languages, and the new Instant Search helps find emails quickly. PCMag Digital Group. Your subscription has been confirmed. If you value stability and dont want to worry about losing access to your apps if a subscription runs out, definitely go for Office 2021. With Googles apps, if you want to collaborate with colleagues, everyone has to access the documents on Googles servers. The screenshot below was taken on the macOS version, because, for reasons that I dont understand, I couldnt get the sheet view to appear on my Windows PCa glitch that Microsoft hasnt explained to me. 1996-2022 Ziff Davis. Get hints for mastering this massive app in our story, 26 Excel Tips for Becoming a Spreadsheet Pro. Most of the alternatives to Office are less powerful or more annoying. Microsoft also offers Office as a subscription called Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365), which requires you to pay for it by the month or year. A free Microsoft account gives you access to all three. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/microsoft-office-professional-2021, Buy-once, use-forever version of Microsoft Office, Includes access to web and mobile versions, Cleaner interface with no new learning curve, Microsoft Words automation features are intrusive and hard to control, Some features are deeply hidden in obscure menus, Read Great Stories Offline on Your Favorite, PC Magazine Digital Edition (Opens in a new window), How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad, How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Bill, How to Convert YouTube Videos to MP3 Files, How to Record the Screen on Your Windows PC or Mac, Read Our Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides Review, 26 Excel Tips for Becoming a Spreadsheet Pro, 6 Tips for Creating Great PowerPoint Presentations Fast, The Best Project Management Software for 2022, Document Editing on the Cheap: How to Use Microsoft Office for Free on the Web, Easy Collaboration: 35 Must-Know Tips for Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Office 2021 went public on the same day that Microsoft released Windows 11 to the public, but you dont need Windows 11 to run Office 2021. You also miss out on generous OneDrive online storage and other extras. If you follow the prompts, you can install the upgrade easily. Right now you can get lifetime access to Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2021 for a one-time payment of just $49.99 ($299 off). To find the option to buy a perpetual license, go to the Microsoft 365 page(Opens in a new window), select either "Personal and Family" or "Business," depending on the version you want. Here we cover Office Professional 2021 for Windows, but much of it applies equally to Office for Mac, which also now comes in a perpetual license version. Office 2021 is the latest version of Microsoft's office suite thats probably more widely used than all other desktop applications in the world. You have to pay for Microsofts desktop appsthe online versions are freebut you dont have to worry about accessing your documents when youre offline, as you do with Google Docs. The most powerful word processor ever made gets easier to use with each new version. It's a certainty that a great many PCMag readers already know their way around Microsoft Office, so we're only taking a brief look at each of the major apps in the suite, and we're keeping the emphasis on new features. It's not an easy language to learn, but anyone can learn the basics by recording a macro and then studying the resulting code in Word's built-in Visual Basic editor. After you run the Office 2021 installer, open one of the Office apps, click on the File menu, then the Account tab, and look at Product Information. If you select Business, scroll all the way down until you see "Looking for Office as a one-time purchase? Not even Microsofts scrubbing tool could clear out all traces of older versions and let me make a clean install of Office 2021. Microsoft 365 subscribers saw these features added gradually over the past two years. An ingenious new XLOOKUP function makes it easy to display a value from a large array of data. Office 2021 is a clear Editors' Choice winner for office suites. I still havent figured out how to use the keyboard to navigate the Proofing pane, as shown in the image below. Links on Android Authority may earn us a commission. But as a bonus, youll also have the use of Teams, OneNote, Publisher, and Access. Office 2021 costs $439.99, or $149.99 for students. You can buy this version directly from Microsoft(Opens in a new window) or through third-party sites such as Amazon. In Excel, we can expect the introduction of important new functions: Theres also the addition of dynamic arrays: youll be able to write one formula but return an array of values. In other words, you can display only one part of a data set while someone else working on the same sheet displays a different part. Original article: January 26, 2022: While you might be doing more spreadsheets or writing more documents at home than ever before, you may also assume that the full Microsoft Office suite is out of your budget. When I tried to make this switch on my test system, some Office apps kept reporting themselves as the Microsoft 365 versions. All for a one-time payment of just $49.99. In Office 2021, youll find new co-authoring features, inking tools, data types, functions, translation and editing tools, motion graphics, ease-of-use features, and so much more! Office Professional 2021 is for growing small businesses who want the classic Office apps (Word, Excel & PowerPoint) plus Outlook, Publisher, Access, Skype for Business and the ability to store documents in OneDrive or locally on your computer. With Microsoft Office, you can collaborate on documents stored on a Microsoft SharePoint Server, in a personal OneDrive folder, or on Dropbox.

Word offers so many high-tech features that you may need to search for themand fortunately, Word and the other apps now include a prominent feature-search field in the title bar. DirectX 10 graphics card for graphics hardware acceleration. If you select Personal and Family, scroll down until you see a large comparison table. PowerPoint adds a few other convenience features, like the ability to record a slideshow and save it as a video file. Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2021 for Windows: Lifetime License. The deal is as good as it sounds no subscription fees or limitations on features. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant. The new search bar also finds Help topics for any terms you enter. If youre upgrading from a previous version, keep in mind that Microsoft, unlike many other vendors, doesnt offer reduced-price upgrades. Instead, mirroring Microsofts new operating system,Office 2021was redesigned to have a softer look with rounded windows and a neutral color palette. If it tells you that youre using Office 365 or an earlier version of Office, click the Change License button. At the top right is an option to buy Office Home & Student 2021 as a one-time purchase for PC and Mac for $149.99. So, as long as youre all plugged into Microsofts cloud storage service, One Drive, everyone will be able to see changes being made by their team in real-time. Office 2021 will be purchased via what Microsoft calls a perpetual license. Thats a single one-off payment; so, no more annual installments. The 2021 date in the name means that this is a perpetual license version that you buy once and use foreveror at least until you decide to upgrade. Tech Deals has you covered on that front too. We like SoftMaker Office 2021 (free for a limited version, $79.95 and up for the full-featured version), but you might also look into rival products like Kingsoft WPS Office (free for a limited version, $119.99 for a perpetual-license version, or $29.99 per year for a subscription), which we hope to review in the future. Finally, you reach the dialog where you can enter your product key and activate Office 2021. Try our 6 Tips for Creating Great PowerPoint Presentations Fast. Once you sign up youve got all of the most popular Office software and tools to maximize your productivity. This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering lab-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services. If, however, youre using an older perpetual-license version, such as Office 2019, Office 2016, or earlier versions, youll find new and mostly improved features that you may decide are worth havingmore about those in a moment. I tested the high-end Office Professional 2021 version ($439.99), which adds Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Access to the basic apps. Keep mind that these will be new only if youre coming from an earlier perpetual-license version. Other alternatives worth considering are the many commercial Office work-alike desktop applications that cost less and also do less. Compare products." The Microsoft Office Mastery Lifetime Bundle is also on sale and offers over 80 hours of guidance across seven tutorials. Students and home users can get along well enough with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, and anyone who needs to use open-source software for legal or other reasons can choose the buggier but no-cost LibreOffice. Office 2021 is not a revolutionary change to the killer suite, but that's okay. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. We cant tell you whether you'll prefer a Microsoft 365 subscription or a perpetual license for Office 2021. You pay the same amount, whether youre just starting out with Office or have been using it since the previous century. Beginners get to choose among thousands of elegant template designs downloadable directly from Word's New menu. And if you already have a non-subscription version, you can upgrade easily from the Microsoft Store. New to PowerPoint or looking to level up you prowess? You can sign up now for just $29 a 98% discount. Office also gives you far more reliable and feature-packed apps than LibreOffice does. Choose that option, and you end up on a page that shows the perpetual license offer for $249.99.

If, like most users, you cant remember that the menus for editing headers and footers are on the Ribbon menus Insert tab, type Header into the feature-search field and Word will take you to the place in the Ribbon where you want to go. The package includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, Publisher, and Access, all for just $50. You dont have to worry about learning a new interface. Ready to buy but wondering how to get the most out of your new software? Access is gaining an updated Linked Table Manager and a new Date/Time Extended data type. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. For anyone doing serious work on a Windows PC, Microsoft Office is close to indispensable. Edward Mendelson has been a contributing editor at PC Magazine since 1988, and writes extensively on Windows and Mac software, especially about office, internet, and utility applications. Either way, we cant imagine a work week without Microsoft Office, and probably you cant either. Outlook gets on-the-fly translations, faster searches, freehand inking, and more. The new iteration is faster and has some welcome additionsnow shipping with Microsoft Teams and adding on-the-fly translation of foreign languages to Outlook, for example. Only one major office suite doesnt try to imitate the way Microsoft Word creates documents, and thats Corel WordPerfect Office 2021 ($249.99), which, unlike all other current word processors, uses a reveal-codes screen that lets you see exactly how your document is formatted, giving you complete control over it. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time. The Draw tab in Word has also been updated to support OpenDocument formats and includes a Sketched style outline. There are some gaps, however. Compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10*. XMATCH searches for a specific item in an array or range of cells; then, it returns the items relative position. I already mentioned presentation powerhouse PowerPoints new ability to record your freehand inking for playback later. Microsofts answer is a live collaboration feature. PowerPoint now features an improved Record Slide Show capability, including ink and laser pointing recordings. Windows 11 only comes in a 64-bit version, but if youre running 32-bit Windows 10, Microsoft will continue to support it until 2025. For example, in the Office 2021 desktop apps, you can now coauthor documents in real time, complete with clear visual indicators of who else is collaborating on the document and where theyre making changes. Its a one-stop-shop for students and professionals alike. Some features formerly only available in Offices browser-based version are now available in the desktop apps. A new dynamic array feature lets you create a formula in the first cell of a table that returns data from all the rows in the table, no matter how many rows it contains, so you dont have to know in advance how many rows your table will contain. Its back on sale now but stock is limited. Just click the Focus button on the toolbar at the foot of the window and switch instantly to a full-screen editing mode with no visible menus, only a scrollbar and buttons at the top that restore the normal window or close the file. If youre upgrading from the 2019 version, heres a list of the major new features. If youre setting up a new computer, however, and you dont have an existing license for Office, then you wont regret starting with the 2021 edition. If you have a two-monitor setup, Focus mode operates only in one monitor so you'll need to power off your second monitor if you want no distractions at all. Learn more. But if you rely on the keyboard, its a real challenge to get to the Proofing pane and select the option you want. The only way I finally sorted everything out was by deleting all the Office-related folders in my Program Files and AppData folders and clearing out all the Office entries in the Windows Registry. Keep an eye on your inbox! Dont expect any major design overhauls, like the previous introduction of the ribbon. In contrast, Microsoft 365 will still function as a regular subscription fee for access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and the rest.. With ever more people working from home, online collaboration is increasingly critical. Office 2021 is our clear Editors' Choice winner for office apps, just as its predecessors have been. Microsoft also has a new LTSC (Long-Term Service Channel) version with fewer features, available only to volume-license purchasers, designed for corporations that dont intend to upgrade their systems often. If you've used recent versions of the suite, you'll find the 2021 version to be a comfortingly familiar experience, with a low learning curve. Microsoft Office, in contrast, runs on a desktop, in a browser, and as a mobile app. If you use an Android device, Linux computer, or Windows PC, youll be able to edit Pages, Numbers, and Keynotes documents only in a web browser. Update: February 21, 2022:We first signposted this deal back in January and it was so popular that it sold out in days. See also: 10 best office apps for Android. This feature extends a nifty and little-known feature from earlier versions that lets you start with two columns, one containing first names, the other containing last names, and automatically create a new column that combines the first and last names into full names. Here are some of the features not to be missed: Your email address will not be published. WordPerfect also makes it easy to perform some cleanup operations that are hopelessly tedious in Word, such as removing unneeded style settings that Word creates when you import data from other applications. You can go anywhere else in your worksheet and assign one cell as a cell where you can type in a stock symbol, and assign another cell as the one that will display the price of the stock you typed. Keep in mind that you may need to make a repair installation of the new version if you encounter problems after removing the old one. But now, the features are being rolled out across the suite of Office software. Microsoft Office is the best set of productivity apps for serious office work.

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