Likelihood to Recommend If you are looking to get started using a publishing / creation application, Affinity Publisher is the one to go for. With a quick learning curve on all the basic functions, you'll be flying in no time. And then there is a whole heap of great features to get into as you become more comfortable with the software. The only down side is if clients are using Adobe programs, there are sometimes problems working with imported layers, but this is minor compared to the ease of use and features.
Read full review Microsoft 365 is well-suited for:Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs): Microsoft 365 offers a cost-effective solution for SMBs to access a suite of essential productivity tools without the need for extensive IT infrastructure. It provides a wide range of applications, allowing teams to collaborate, communicate, and manage documents efficiently.Remote Work and Collaboration: Microsoft 365's cloud-based nature makes it ideal for remote work scenarios. With tools like Microsoft Teams, employees can easily communicate, hold video conferences, and collaborate on projects in real-time, regardless of their location.Microsoft 365 may be less appropriate for:Organizations with Specific Software Requirements: Some organizations may have specialized software needs that are not met by Microsoft 365. In such cases, they may require industry-specific software or custom solutions.Limited Internet Connectivity: Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based platform, which means a stable internet connection is essential for optimal functionality. Organizations with poor internet connectivity might face challenges using the cloud-based applications effectively.
Read full review Pros Supports just about any format you'll need for your project. The variety of templates makes startign projects simple. The program is just really powerful and fairly priced. Read full review keeps me extremely organized. It is so easy to link calendars, emails, and documents. keeps me well connected. It is so easy to send a quick message on teams or send an email to a group (for example, my particular team within the company). easy to use. Everything is straightforward, making it easy to find an answer to a question. There is even a search option to figure out how to do something within Microsoft. Read full review Cons Menu differences can be an impediment to new users from other softwares Some functions are not in places I would expect Read full review Microsoft 365 really needs to work on protection part. In complex environment it is not reliable as compared to its competitors like Proofpoint. There are many instances where it fails to perform effectively. In SharePoint Online the versioning feature of the document needs to be improved by Microsoft. Sometimes when we have to roll back to the previous version it does not work as expected. In Teams messaging and app permission policies can be improved. There are some settings where we have to add a lot of things manually. Read full review Likelihood to Renew There are many features of Office that we cannot replicate in any other tool. Plus people know it already. It's not going away anytime soon.
Read full review Usability The interface of the different tools (this suite has MANY different tools) is usually simple to use and intuitive, and you can always re-arrange and add or remove the task you use most frequently from the menus and task bars.
Each tool / product includes a lot of features that may require a more intensive learning, but usually Office 365 tools are simple to learn from scratch, adding more knowledge as you required more advanced features
Read full review Support Rating Our team typically uses other online resources instead of contacting developers/manufacturers for support. That being said, there is a forum and a growing, vibrant community of users available to answer questions and "make the switch." A simple "whatever function we used to use in
Adobe InDesign ," followed by "Affinity," usually gets us on the right track to an answer. YouTube and their forums are our team's go-to sources for help.
Read full review Over the past 8 years of using Microsoft 365, I have noticed that they change vendors often. This always leads to a poor experience in the beginning, then levels out after some time for the company to get things worked out. As a customer, it is really frustrating because I don't have time when something isn't working to have them "look into my issue" and get back with me. They have even closed a ticket I specifically told them to keep open. Your applications are only as good as the support.
Read full review Implementation Rating Everything works and I use it all the time.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Affinity Publisher is a more cost effective way to achieve the same goals as InDesign and Quark. I'm sure there are various differences that Affinity may lack, however we have yet to run into one that our business has needed, or even recognized. It has completely replaced any desktop publishing for our organization without issue.
Read full review Google Sheets is better for sharing and collaborative editing. Versioning of the same file is also one of
Google Sheets strong points.
Microsoft 365 is better for working with local files. It is much easier to store the file in multiple places and backup multiple versions in multiple places.
LibreOffice is free but the usage is much counter intuitive than Microsoft Office. OpenOffice is worse when it comes to UI.
Microsoft Excel's performance with larger files is much better. When opening huge files, excel loads it asynchronously and I can start working right away.
Read full review Return on Investment I wish we could push it out to all staff but we can't quite afford the cost. Amount of features can be overwhelming for first time users and take more time. This program will save time once employees figure it out. Read full review Positively, it has increased productivity and efficiency in creating templates and being able to systemize some of the protocols we are working on putting into place. It has been a positive as well as most individuals and companies that we associate with also use MicroSoft 365 and therefore there is no need to have formats change in our documents when they open them up using another type of program. Getting work done quickly.... One and Done!!! Read full review ScreenShots