Office 365 1 year versus lifetime

Having had a one-off Office 97 for years (yes I know), I must upgrade my technology.

What I see regarding Office 365 is that you can pay about £50 for a one-year subscription.
What happens after a year? Does it stop working unless you can renew online somehow for
a further year? And if so, what would the cost of renewal likely be?

The other option is a "lifetime buy" at about £110. I would imagine that this purchase will not
get any updates etc (unsure), and I'd be taking a slight chance that it will be very out of date perhaps in 5 years. But to me, it sounds like the better option for my particular purposes. Seeing as 97 has lasted me so long that might be the same sort of case.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

bootjangler said:

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I do not know office 97 but i use LibreOffice, it may be more than enough to replace 97.
I find it very useful.

Thanks, but Libre Office will not be able to handle my Excel 97 files.

bootjangler said:

Thanks, but Libre Office will not be able to handle my Excel 97 files.

It may be able, I use it with many "xls" without problems;
i suggested it just because you said "any advice"

Of course. But I have tried it. I won't handle multiple tabs as far as I can see, from "exporting" my Excel files.

What do you mean with "multiple tabs and exporting" ? (not trying to convince you, I find it good to know should I encounter similar files)

Thanks.

Tabs, ie separate worksheets within one file.
"Exporting" meant a rough way of opening the Excel files and then saving them under the Libre Office notation.
I have hundreds and don't fancy that.

Ok thanks, but you do not need to export the .xls file you can open it with libreoffice and coninue to use it as .xls or save it as .ods (the ODS format used by libreoffice).

all the Best !

Well what I found out when I upgraded from 2003, was that there are two different versions of office, office and Office Plus. the Office Plus turns out to be a full on-disk version of office. I have first purchased a straight up office pro 2013 and found its cloud-based and wouldn't work for me at all Since I work remotely with little or no internet connection. My search finally somehow I found out about Office Pro Plus 2013. Amazing it was just what I expected Office to be. I had to turn off some of the built-in cloud stuff, One drive, one-note some others I don't remember now. So support ends for 2013 this year in March. I'm not worried about it or plan to upgrade. but let us know what you find with 2016 whether they have a Plus version? The other pitfall is office no longer support 2 devices as it did in the past. Don't know whether you are used to having a version on your desktop and notebook for travel or not. We now have to purchase 2 licenses