In the world we live in, it is almost impossible to get work done without a fantastic word processor. And, if we are to rank a word processor solely on popularity and versatility, Microsoft Word definitely takes the cake.
However, the processor does not come for cheap and more often than not, it is generally bundled into the Microsoft Office package. Therefore, one has to purchase the entire Office package to get access to word.
Standalone copies of MS Word are pretty difficult to find and even if you locate them, they end up costing as much as MS Office.
Without beating about the bush any further, here are 5 tips to buying MS Word for Mac! If you have time to spare and need Word pronto, you can buy Word for Mac here.
Looking for some of the Best Microsoft Word Alternatives for Mac? Well, there are so many users out there who often leaves Windows and switch to This application is completely free to use also it looks like the Microsoft Word. Hence, as a result, you do not have to struggle in understanding how to use. Word for Mac 2016 tips 1. Ribbon Revamp 2. Design and Layout 3. Microsoft Mail 4. Taken to Task 5. Several tools have been removed from the main Home tab and relocated within a series of new tabs that are more tightly organised than in Word 2011.
Tip 1: Ask your company or educational institution for cheap license
Many companies and educational institutions offer the full version of Microsoft Office 2016 to their employees and students. These institutions usually acquire the licenses in large volumes and get large discounts on their purchases, allowing them to get their hands on the MS Office copies for cheap.
And, they usually either offer a free or cheap Microsoft Office license to their employees and students for one major reason—because the workforce and students really need the software application.
Tip 2: Be aware of the payment options
You can get your hands on The Office Home & Student 2016 for Mac at around $150. And, the package usually includes applications such as Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Excel. A OneDrive storage of 15 GB is also provided. The Office Home & Business 2016 for Mac is usually priced at around $230.
The package includes Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, and Word. However, if you subscribe to Office 365, you can download Office 2016 for as little as $6.99 per month for one license, or $69.99 per year.
Tip 3: Sign up for an evaluation
It is also possible for you to get your hands on Office apps through Microsoft´s evaluation program. If you sign up for the evaluation, you can get access to Project Professional 2016 for 2 months, Visio Professional 2016 for 60 days, and Office 365 ProPlus for a month.
Of course, you can also try a free 30-day trial of Office 365, but with the evaluation program, you get access to more specific and full-featured software.
Tip 4: Try other alternatives
If you are truly strapped for cash and can’t afford MS Word, you should know that there are other cheaper alternatives around that work just as efficiently as MS Word. We would recommend you to give WPS Office Free’s word processing component, Writer, a try.
Not only is its design identical to Word, the word processor also boasts of an exemplary file format support. In addition to that, it also has a built-in cloud support with 1 GB free storage.
Despite alternatives to Microsoft Word it is not possible to completely avoid using it in academic work on a Mac. If you have to edit texts in MS Word you might as well do it smoothly and efficiently, save time and preserve focus by replacing mouse movements with keyboard shortcuts. Unfortunately, keyboard shortcuts in Word on Mac are significantly different from those in other Mac apps and in Word for Windows. Some of those are listed by Microsoft, but many of my favorite commands are not in this list. Fortunately, there is a way to define keyboard shortcuts for most frequent tasks.
One way to do it is through System Preferences. The Keyboard Shortcuts tab in the Keyboard preference pane allows you to define shortcuts for performing menu commands from specific apps, including MS Word (see example in the screenshot below).
Unfortunately, this method has not been working perfectly for me because (a) one needs to type menu commands exactly as they appear in MS Word, even a smallest typo will lead to malfunction and (b) some of the things I want shortcuts for are not menu commands.
For example, I often want to change the style of a particular paragraph to one of the standard styles such as Title or Footnote Text. The default word template does not have keyboard shortcuts for such styles (although it does for more frequently used Normal and Heading 1-3). Normally I would take my mouse, go to the style selection window and scroll through dozens of styles to find the one I need. For years, I really missed an MS Word for Windows shortcut ^⌥S which would bring my cursor directly to the style selection window and let me just type the name of the style I need. And I had no idea how to do it through System Preferences, because it’s not really a menu command.
Recently I discovered that Word has a menu item called Customize Keyboard … where you can really define a shortcut for getting anywhere you want inside the program. I immediately found a solution to my problem:
Here are three more shortcuts I have defined through this feature and use very extensively:
- ^⌥C – insert a caption;
- ^⌘R – insert a cross-reference;
- ^⌘Space – clear formatting (i.e. return to default style formatting).