Current Events > what's the cheapest legit way to purchase microsoft office

(+) Yeah! (+)

would like to avoid those reddits where people arrange to sell them too, for the sake of expedience.
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Office 365 subscription is the cheapest way.

If you only want some basic functions you can try downloading Libre Office instead. It's compatible with Microsoft Office file formats and can export to pdf.
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don't plenty of sites sell office activation keys for a fraction of the standard price
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Find someone who has a government email account. They can get it for like 15 bucks.
Might have some offer for student emails as well.
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I hate how so many companies don't let you just buy the piece of software now. Fucking paying a monthly fee. After a couple of years you just end up paying 10 times what it should've normally cost.
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frozenshock posted...

I hate how so many companies don't let you just buy the piece of software now. Fucking paying a monthly fee. After a couple of years you just end up paying 10 times what it should've normally cost.

yep , this is why my photoshop is still cs3
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frozenshock posted...

I hate how so many companies don't let you just buy the piece of software now. Fucking paying a monthly fee. After a couple of years you just end up paying 10 times what it should've normally cost.

isn't it also effective at reducing piracy of software?
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Kombucha posted...

frozenshock posted...

I hate how so many companies don't let you just buy the piece of software now. Fucking paying a monthly fee. After a couple of years you just end up paying 10 times what it should've normally cost.

isn't it also effective at reducing piracy of software?

Microsoft has reduced piracy by making their software have no real copy protections. You can download Windows or Office directly from them, install them, then don't activate your license. They continue working but they just make you feel bad or try to like the WinRAR popup.
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You could use google docs instead. Can save in any file format you want, and you've always got your docs on the cloud.
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Cheapest legit options are likely government employee licence or student licence, if either are applicable or you have a friend/relative who is.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Kombucha posted...

frozenshock posted...

I hate how so many companies don't let you just buy the piece of software now. Fucking paying a monthly fee. After a couple of years you just end up paying 10 times what it should've normally cost.

isn't it also effective at reducing piracy of software?

Microsoft has reduced piracy by making their software have no real copy protections. You can download Windows or Office directly from them, install them, then don't activate your license. They continue working but they just make you feel bad or try to like the WinRAR popup.

microsoft seems to also have the benefit of having their software preinstalled on a bunch of hardware and the companies making this hardware happen to be paying customers that don't bother pirating so that's a massive (nearly guaranteed) revenue stream. it seems a little unfair to compare other software companies to microsoft for this reason.
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I kept reading title as Microsoft Breakfast. I wonder what's in a Microsoft Breakfast.
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oh okay so what you guys are saying is that buying keys online is not strictly legit

In that case

Which is the most reliable such seller....
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i don't want to derail the topic so i will echo what others have said- libre office is legitimately good if you're just going to do basic word processing. if you bounce an email out to someone with something put together in libreoffice it's going to be compatible with office if that's what they're using.
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I subscribe to Office 365 mostly for the 1TB of One Drive cloud storage. The office programs are just a side bonus.
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might actually be able to get it on the basis of my workplace's HUP so might check that out tomorrow.....
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Kombucha posted...

so that's a massive (nearly guaranteed) revenue stream.

It's a different kind of revenue. OEM pricing is different from retail keys. Additionally if you try to use an already activated OEM key on a different machine, it won't work.

The reusable retail key that you can install on many different machines is much more expensive around $300.

So you can either:
1) buy an unused OEM key for $25 approximately under the pretense that you will need to buy another one if you ever have to do something like buy a new computer or make significant hardware changes.

or

2) buy a retail key for around $300 but it's good forever or at least until Microsoft makes "Windows 11" or equivalent.
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PoopPotato posted...

Find someone who has a government email account. They can get it for like 15 bucks.
Might have some offer for student emails as well.

This. My mom is a government contractor and she got Office Professional, Project and Visio for about $100 total. That may seem like a lot, but Project and Visio are hundreds of dollars each individually. These are also essentially business/enterprise licenses that give you full functionality and never expire - I recently reinstalled them on her new computer with no hiccups about license transference or anything.