Microsoft Office 365 Analysis and Review

Note: This page is constantly updating by our team. Comments are always welcome.

Microsoft Office 365 is one of the versions of  Office packages. It was introduced back in 2011, but still it is maybe the best software for office applications. It includes various applications that you can use in your everyday life. Depending on which package you buy, you will get different applications and different features. 

In general Microsoft Office 365 package includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, OneNote and Access. All of these MS Office 365 apps are available online, meaning you can use them on any computer if you log in to your account on any of the well-known web browsers.

The last packages are intended for larger businesses. The packages Business Enterprices 3 and 4 offer unlimited number of users and basically all available office apps and all services like Exchange and Lync Server and Yammer Enterprise. However, they tend to be little pricey when compared to the other plans.

There are several licensing plans, besides all the apps I previously mentioned, MS Office 365 includes OneDrive storage ranging from 15 GB to unlimitted.

Microsoft Office 365 Licensing Plans

The great thing about these licensing plans is that they are numerous, so you can really find the right one according to your needs. 

People that need MS Office 365 for their personal use at home can choose between: Personal and Home. There is not much of big difference between this two licensing plans, but the Home plan does allow you to install Office 365 apps on 5 devices, meaning you can create 5 users. 

The other licensing plans are intended for businesses. Business Essentials and Business Premium are intended for small and medium sized business because you can sign up to 25 users. However, Business Essentials is some kind of trial version, because it doesn’t include the desktop apps, you can access them only online.

If you want to use  Office 365 at home or you are a small business or organization with less than 10 employees maybe the  Office 365 Home is the best solution. It offers all the apps and if you buy 2 licenses you can install the office apps on 10 computers.

All plans include office apps on Android, Windows Phone and iOS that you can install on your mobile devices. 

Short introduction of the Microsoft Office 365 Apps 

I guess you already know how you can use Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint. Publisher is very similar to Adobe’s InDesign and you can use it for creation of brochures, posters, flyers etc. OneNote is a great productivity app that you can use for planning of activities and projects. Access is the perfect app for creating databases, while Lync is a great instant messaging client that can be used in your company.

All these apps again confirm that Microsoft Office 365 is still one of the best office software in the world. 


1. 365 Word  

Office 365 Word is part of every Office 365 package. Filled with tons of useful features, Word is essential and the most used application from any Microsoft Office package plans.

MS Word largely improved and changed when  Office 365 was introduced. The graphics and the design of it got a huge boost and change. Now, they look modern and much more compelling when compared to other versions.

The PDF Reflow is another new feature. This enables you to easily edit any PDF document and edit it on Word. The proofing packages are much broader and precise. The app will remind you and offer you proofing package for every possible language and trust me, the list of languages is long. The proofing tool is one of the best and most useful things in the new Word.

But the greatest new feature of the new Word is the Word Online feature. This is something Microsoft has introduced with the Office 365 and Office 2013. Basically, now you can create Word document, save it directly on your local OneDrive folder. Then OneDrive will automatically sync it with your account and make it accessible from anywhere on the web. 

Additionally, every Office application is available online, that includes Word as well. That means that you can access, view and edit that document from anywhere on the web, even from computers that don’t have the Office 365 installed. You can even create it directly on the web with the Word Online web app. Another great feature is that you can share it, edit it and work on it with anyone you want.

So, Office 365 Word has many useful new features. Microsoft has largely improved the user interface, the proofing tool and it has focused on the cloud based technology - the Word Online is a great feature that can largely improve your productivity.

Word has all basic features from the previous versions, but it has some interesting and really helpful improvements. For instance, they paid attention to the view and control of your document. Now it is very easy to navigate through your sentences and paragraphs with the new reading mode. It is optimized for every size, especially for tablets. Additionally, now you can easily move around the photos, issue that was a huge problem in Word 2010.

2. 365 Excel  

Microsoft’s Excel is one of the company’s strongest assets in the battle with the competition. This comprehensive app is one of the best Windows apps for statistics and analytics in the last 15-20 years. 

Its newest version is the Office 365 Excel, and like every application that is part of this new Office suite, it comes with tons of new features, besides the all old ones, oh and it looks graphically stunning! 

Like in every other Office 365 app, you will be able to access Excel from anywhere, even in situations when there is no Office 365 installed on that certain device. You’ll just need internet connection and a browser. 

Also, for each subscription you will get installs on your Mac, tablets or smartphones, devices on which Microsoft has worked hard to optimize Excel for. They did a great job, because Excel looks stunning on tablets and smartphones. 

With the new Excel there are tons of new templates for doing various reports and calculations. This will definitely make your job much easier, because it will save you the time for finding and creating 

customizable looks, design and formulas. 

Also, another new feature is the possibility to reveal new insights in your data. The flash fill will auto-complete patterns and formulas and give you new insights, while the recommended pivot table will enable you to do complex analysis in a fast way.

But, the amazing visualization of data in the new Office 365 Excel is what makes this app to stand out when compared to its predecessors. The features like the Recommended chart where Excel recommends you the best chart that best illustrate your data’s patterns is only one of the several great visualization features. 

The great thing with Office 365 is that you can share any Excel document very easy. You can work on it together with your colleagues, or just simply share it in a read-only form. The possibilities are endless and at the end of the day, you will feel that Excel is a modern, highly functional and improved app.


3.365 PowerPoint 

PowerPoint is part of all previous Microsoft Office versions. It is an essential app, and the most used
application for creating presentations. In the new  Office 365, PowerPoint offers a lot more
than its predecessors.

 It is redesigned and now it looks graphically stunning, like all other apps that are included in Office 365.

PowerPoint is the basic office application and it is included in every Office 365 package, from personal to business. Office 365’s PowerPoint gives you greater control and effects creation. There are a lot of design features that can make your presentation to stand out from everyone else.

The great thing is that Power Point includes built-in alignment guides. But, even without them you will use PowerPoint with ease. Everything is intuitive, you can simply align shapes, text boxes and videos to your slides, now more easily and faster than in the previous versions.

Microsoft did pay a lot of attention to the online applications and their synchronizations across devices. Like every other app that is part of the Office 365, PowerPoint is available online and you can save any presentation on OneDrive or SharePoint and access it from anywhere.

This means that you can share any presentation or work together on it with your colleagues or friends, only if you give them permission to edit. The collaboration can be seemingles because you can comment and reply to any change from your phone, tablet or Mac.

When it comes to features, besides the tons of newly available installed templates, PowerPoint doesn’t offer anything especially better than the PowerPoint in Office 2010. However, Office 365 PowerPoint will give you greater control over the presentations and working on them will feel much easier and more intuitive. Also, the application is perfectly optimized for tablets and smartphones, which means you can work on your presentations while on the go or while you are out of your office.

PowerPoint is another huge improvement done by Microsoft in their newest Office package. Graphically it looks way better and it is much easier to control and use. Also, the fact that is available online and that you can sync and work together with other people on the same presentation is another huge plus.


4. 365 OneNote

OneNote is an application that is part of the Microsoft Office package. It is a note taking application, but an application that involves much more. It is a productivity app that will help you organize your work and life, but it will also enable you tons of productivity management tools for your company or 

organization. 

When Microsoft designers worked on One Note Office 365, they designed it for capturing ideas and 

information in electronic form. But keeping in mind that the mobile devices market has evolved largely, the new OneNote was designed for better use on smartphones and tablets. I must admit that they did a great job, because the UI is practically astonishing both on smartphones and tablets.

The basis and the use of One Note is as following: 

• It acts like a paper notebooks,
• Each notebook can be divided into sections and pages. 
• On these pages, you can easily type text and edit or format it.
• Draw directly onto the screen.
• Capture page elements, such as tables from web pages. 
• The best thing is that anything that you write or create can be drag and moved around. 

There are few other reasons why OneNote is a powerful application. First of all it is compatible with Excel, meaning you can create Excel worksheets into OneNote Page. You can work on Microsoft Visio drawings as well. To enhance productivity even more, One Note is compatible with Outlook as well. For example you can link particular notes from One Note to an event in your Outlook Calendar. So, when you go to that particular meeting, the notes will come out as well, and you can open and use them.

The handwriting feature is also supported. You can easily write tasks or to-do lists in OneNote with your fingers. That is another great feature to this amazing Office application.

As any part of the Office family, you can share any OneNote document on One Drive and edit or work on it as a group with any of your friends or coworkers. 

One Note is a great add up to the Office 365 suite. It can be very useful for creating to-do lists and ideas, and the fact that it is compatible with most of the other Office 365 apps makes it even a greater tool in your everyday life.

4. 365 Outlook 

Outlook is the most used email client for over 15 years. This outstanding Microsoft app got polished and beautifully upgraded in the newest office version – Office 365.

Now it looks more graphically stunning and extremely compelling. Office 365 Outlook has got all the features of its predecessors, but as expected, it also has new improvements and features for greater benefit of the end users.

In the new Outlook everything is just cleaner, easy to use and less cluttered. The message list is much more functional. The mini-preview will help you to easily see which messages you need to deal with
first.

The all and unread buttons in the left top corner of the message list, there is a great control of viewing of the messages. From there you can directly delete the message, or flag it as a to-do item if it is a task you need to do.

Another great feature is that you can reply to any message inline, without opening new window. From the main window you can easily change any view. In the bottom left corner you can switch from mail to calendar or tasks.

 It is interesting that with the peak view you can see what is happening in your calendar, tasks, notes or contacts without even opening them.

However, that doesn’t mean that Outlook wants to offer you little information and details, because it
contains possibility for adding great amount of information about every contact. Also, you can organize every folder in the way you like to do it and with Exchange and SharePoint you can work with your colleagues together in a more synchronized way.

In the Outlook Office 365 the tasks are synced between Outlook and Outlook.com i.e Outlook Web App. The Outlook Web App has also new large improvements.

Another neat feature in the new Outlook is the weather bar. You can now easily see what will be the
weather in a certain date from within the app. Outlook displays the weather forecast for up to 5 cities.

All in all the new Outlook is amazing. It is much easier to use and it offers multiple functionalities that we loved. Everything is nicely designed and fast. It is truly an amazing email client. The best!


5. 365 Publisher 

Publisher is a well-known Microsoft application that enables you to create publications, from greeting cards or labels, to yearbooks, catalogs and even professional email newsletters.

The newest version of Publisher is called Publisher 2013. It is part of the new version of Microsoft Office – Office 365. It is synced with the other Office apps and you can easily share any file you produce on this app via One Drive. You can access it anywhere on the web or just keep it stored there.

So, lets go through the features of this wonderful application. As expected, Publisher 2013 includes tons of built-in templates. So, you can easily find already prepared templates according to your needs, whether you want to create simple label, or complex and compelling email newsletter.

The new publisher also gives you new ways to add pictures and text. Basically, you can import photos from anywhere, from your office.com account, from Bing image search and from your OneDrive account. The control of the photos is now much smoother and cleaner. You can add multiple photos and control and put them anywhere on your document.

You can try all sorts of different picture effects to make them look more professional and compelling. There are possibilities to add shadows, reflections, glow and 3D rotations.

You can also add different effects to your text. There are tons of interesting and useful text effects that, again, can make your publication to stand out from others.

Office 365 Publisher also offers various printing options, which is awesome if you want to print your publication in an image printing center, and not on your local printer. You can easily export your document like a photo for printing, like a document for commercial printer, or you can export it to another computer.

All in all Publisher is an easy to use office application. Perfect for creation of various business publications. It is easy to use, fast, with great control options and effects. The synchronization with OneDrive makes Publisher even more transparent.

6.365 Access

Microsoft Access is one of the best applications in the MS Office 365 package. Filled with tons of useful data entrance and data base features, Microsoft Access has become one of the vital applications in any working environment. Microsoft Access’s importance is even bigger because of the fact that it is compatible with many other programs, including Excel, Outlook, Oracle and Word, meaning that you can easily import or export data from this essential Office applications.

The Microsoft Access 365 is one of the best versions of this outstanding applications. It enables you tons of not only statistical features, but also graphics and programing features. Microsoft Access can be used by software developers and data architects to develop app software and also it can be used to build software apps. Access supports Visual Basic for Applications.

Lets go through the features of Microsoft Access Office 365. It enables you to create various tables, queries, forms etc. and connect them all with macros. After you create them, you can easily access to your data with the search feature or you can neatly organize your data via various categories or keywords. The options for finding certain information are also countless. 

Any database can be shared on the Web. You can do that within your Office 365 account. You can upload it on OneDrive, on your own intranet SharePoint server or on a hosted SharePoint server. The best solution is to choose custom web app on the start. The great thing is that you can open any Access file in the browser. In any case, the people you want to share your Access file will be able to use the data from it. You can even set it up so they can add their own data to the Access file, but you can also forbid them to edit the file. 

Another great feature of Access is that you can use it to manage the work of your employees. You can easily assign tasks and follow their progress. So, it is a productivity management tool as well.

The features you need to remember about Microsoft Access 365 is that it is database application and macro creator and editor. It is compatible with tons of programs, you can open it in a web browser and you can share and edit it online.  


OneDrive

Recently, Microsoft has offered unlimited OneDrive cloud storage with MS 365 subscription. Microsoft has removed its storage limit for OneDrive. It has been changed into an unlimited subscription every month. This only means that if you are an Office 365 subscriber for Home, University or Personal, you can optimize and maximize your OneDrive every month. If you would like yours to be upgraded with this new innovation of OneDrive, you can go to the preview site of Microsoft OneDrive. 

OneDrive provides great storage and simple and easy file sharing. It provides extension of file space for personal work station which includes real-time backup, document workflow and incorporates document editing. These services of cloud storage are fast, easy to use, cheap and it only demands a very minimal up front or investment for long-term purposes. Large restoration or backup could be automated or take place without even knowing it. 

This new OneDrive Unlimited makes certain that you will not miss out any of your significant content in every device of yours while it enables others to engage and be a co-author of a document. This says a final goodbye to the earlier times in which you cannot get a certain important document when you need it and administering various versions for a similar document. Microsoft OneDrive Unlimited is only a single resource  accessible at any of your devices. Additionally, with Office Delve— a feature of OneDrive, an essential document in which your co-worker has shared with you using their OneDrive can in fact find you, unlike the earlier times wherein YOU have to locate it.

Photo: onedrive.live.com

There is no number limitation of certain devices which could access the storage of OneDrive. However, the access is united to one Microsoft account along with Personal subscription. If you do have a home subscription, up to 5 individual holders of Microsoft account could have their personal space on cloud storage. OneDrive Unlimited 365 provides users with completely installed permit to major applications of Microsoft Office such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Access and Publisher. 

This  innovation from Microsoft has made them a competitive alternative for cloud storage. From its major competitors who give a fixed storage for every month, OneDrive provides an unlimited service for a fixed price of $6.99 a month. So if you have not changed your cloud storage yet then this is the perfect time you try this out and see how beneficial this new innovation of Microsoft is. 

Microsoft is indeed challenging and is putting a pressure to compete with other companies’ unlimited storages. This now depends if major rivals of Microsoft in terms of cloud storage will take the challenge and respond to their customers’ demand for similar offering. Just wait until you see how these other companies take their competitive product defense. For sure, they will not let their product down and be left out from the new innovation of Microsoft OneDrive.

 For sure, sooner or later, they will also launch their new cloud storage innovation which will take people overwhelmed or even confused which among these innovations will be the most cost-effective and beneficial for their needs. However, the only thing certain now is that Microsoft is the first company which provided this kind of offering, making them receive awesome commentaries about it.