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We have a mac mini running parallels and the whole family hates it. Its slow and clunky and we get the spinning disc all too frequently even with upgraded memory. Thinking of switching to office 365, any views would be appreciated before we give up on the whole mac thing.
How much memory does it have?
Then, why run office through parallels? Just use the MacOS version.
Isn’t there a free Mac equivalent to Office? I’m sure I read somewhere there’s one that can open and edit existing Office docs, I think it’s available for iOS as well, I’ve never had need of it, so I’m not absolutely certain.
Worth looking into to avoid Parallels which seems to be compromising performance.
If you switch to Office 365 then you can just download the native Mac versions of Office.
what’s the spec of the mini?
At home we've been running the current Mac version of the Office suite on a Mac Mini for a number of years. Ours is a 2012 Core i7 with 16GB RAM and SSD. No performance issues at all - it all runs as smoothly as it does at work on much more powerful machines.
Mind you, would rather not be paying monthly for it. But there we go. .
I tried Parallels a few years back, it was bloody horrible. I nuked that and just used Bootcamp, no problems. Unless you absolute have to use both OSs, I think you're better to just choose one and stick with that.
Have same spec as woffle. i have been told that the mac version has compatibility issues - kids and wife are often jumping between machines and transferring files on sticks. So why do people use parallels if office 365 exists? Thanks
Think it’s pretty good value really considering you can download the native apps, you can use the web version, or the iOS versions. You also get OneDrive with 1TB of storage. And OneNote and Outlook.
I use Parallels on a MacBook Pro and it did take a bit of configuring to get it to run properly and use it nearly always in Coherence mode. I have a Windows laptop too and it is rarely used now.
If you are using Parallels just to run MS Office then just get the Mac versions. If you have multiple computers and tablets then go for the subscription. The MS Office on the Mac is very good now and on par with the PC versions. Files made on one platform work seemless on others. I’m also using the subscription on the iPad too which works very well too.
“Have same spec as woffle. i have been told that the mac version has compatibility issues – kids and wife are often jumping between machines and transferring files on sticks. So why do people use parallels if office 365 exists? Thanks”
I've had no issues and I’m always switching between platforms as well as sending files to PC users. I tend to use Dropbox for transferring files but as Blobby says Onedrive will do the same thing and you can just open a machine and get straight to your files regardless of what platform you’re on.
Which Mac mini is it? My brother has one of the older versions, had if for years, he does a lot of photo and video editing so not just posing about on Internet forums. His was getting pretty slow and clunky so recently upgraded RAM and HDD to an SSD and he says it has transformed it - it is better than it was when new and can handle his photo and video editing no probs. So sounds like a worthwhile upgrade full stop.
As to office 365, we don't have that but instead use open office and it is fine...just as good as MS Office for what we use it for, not yet found any limitations with it and is completely compatible with Office docs, so I've used with files from work done on MS office (powerpoint, Excel and Word) and completely interchangeable.
Office 2016 for Mac on Amazon as a code and download link for £15 works really well, but is quite ram intensive
You need to change your HDD for an SSD.
Stop running parallels and use the Mac version of Word.
Not spotted any compatibility issues since about Office 2011 or perhaps 2008
Stop running parallels and use the Mac version of Word
OpenOffice is what you need. Been using it for years. It's free and equally as shite as the MS stuff.
https://www.openoffice.org/porting/mac/
LibreOffice is probably a better option than OpenOffice. It is getting a lot more active development, so has had quite a few improvements and fixes. Probably better compatibly with files from MS Office etc.
Or there's NeoOffice, which is another spin-off, specifically designed for Mac OS. Though costs a few quid. Not sure if its much different.
Gave up on Parallels very quickly. Wasn't too bad to use but needed to pay for an upgrade every year when MacOS was upgraded - just wasn't worth the money. Bootcamp when I need to but if you're using MS Office the incompatibilities are rare now.
As above, you can pick up OEM copies of 2016 for peanuts on EBay.
If it's an old mac running slowly then an SSD will make far more difference than more memory.
Visual basic and pivot tables used to be a problem on Macs. From 2016 this seems to have been sorted.
I put a SSD in my 2011 Mac Mini and it’s a million times better.
Not too difficult either.
Thanks all, parallels is gone. Tried Libreoffice but the install process was too complicated for me! So office 365 installed and mac is now super fast, excel and word open immediately, no spinning discs - happy family again!
Parallels is well known to be a bit of a pig
Either get Mac version of Office or just use Mac Pages assuming you don’t need Excel, Mac equivalent (Numbers) isn’t great. Pages can read / write Office files and save as pdf
We have Office for Mac from 2013 on my wife’s MacBook Air and I run Parallels with W10 & Office 2016 for MS Visio and MS Project - as I’ve never found equally good Mac software for these. So I have a couple of questions.
1. Seeing as I don’t need to interface with Mac apps when using Project, would I be better off removing Parallels and using Bootcamp? My machine isn’t slow as it is TBF
2. How similar are the Office for Mac and Office 2016 interfaces? I get tired of the quirky menus in Mac for Office from c2013.
Cheers,
J
^^ Clarification - I Run Parallels on my MacBook Pro.
I have no issues with parallels, but these days I do have 16 GB of RAM.
The only compatibility issues I’ve had between win and Mac office have been very complex excel sheets with activex, which won’t run on the Mac. And I use my Mac in a very windows dominated environment.
How similar are the Office for Mac and Office 2016 interfaces? I get tired of the quirky menus in Mac for Office from c2013.
They’re pretty similar in feel now. I definitely understand the pain and it’s almost gone. The only problem seems to be when asking Google for advice as some options are still in a different place on the Mac version.
Yes, I’m running 16gb of RAM, that must make some of the difference.
Office 365 on native MacOS is fine. Should run OK on an i7 2012. It ran OK on the 2012 MBP 15” I sold last year
I use parallels on a 2017 MBP 15”. It seems fine running another instance of Office 365 at the same time as running it on MacOS. ‘It’ being word, PowerPoint, excel, and one note running.
Menu-wise MacOS and Windows Office 365 are different. But if you’re ok with the ribbon they’re close enough. Hey, O365 for Mac now has VBA if you want to suffer.