People using Office 365, Office 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, and 2007 as well as Office for Mac 2008 or later will be able to open and view your documents. Those on versions earlier than Office 2007 may need to install a compatibility pack.
Office for Mere Mortals helps people around the world get more from Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Delivered once a week. free.
We never share your email address with anyone - never have, never will. Privacy Policy.
Here’s what we know about the Office 2019 for Windows. There’s a matching page about Office 2019 for Mac.
Before you get too excited
Do NOT buy Office 2019 if you have Office 365 like Office 365 Home, Office 365 Personal or an enterprise plan. In other words, you pay for Office as an annual fee.
Office 2019 is NOT like past versions such as Office 2016, Office 2013 etc. It’s NOT a new version intended for all Microsoft Office users.
Anyone on an Office 365 plan does NOT need Office 2019.
Office 365 ‘subscribers’ have a more advanced version of Microsoft Office already.
Office 2016 for Office 365 customers get regular updates of new and improved features, including cloud-based features that won’t be in Office 2019.
Office 2019 is NOT the most up-to-date version of Microsoft Office.
What is Office 2019?
Office 2019 for Windows or Mac are separate versions of Office for anyone who buys the perpetual license.
Perpetual License is what Microsoft calls paying once for the ongoing use of Microsoft Office.
Compared to the ‘subscription’ or annual payment model of Office 365 that Microsoft prefers and has been pushing customers towards.
Office 2019 is for non-subscription customers who want some new features but won’t switch to the regularly updated Office software sold via Office 365.
Microsoft wants all customers to ‘subscribe’ to Office because that’s more profitable for the company with a more regular cash flow. But there are a significant number of corporate users who refuse to pay that way or they don’t want the increasingly cloud connected features of the main Office software sold with Office 365 plans. See Microsoft’s dirty little secret about Office 2019.
Who should buy it?
Anyone who wants any of the new/changed features in Office 2019 and is prepared to pay once for essentially fixed feature software.
Unlike the Office 365 subscription releases, Office 2019 will not get any feature updates over time.
Who should NOT buy it?
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125842697/125470515.png)
If you have an Office 365 plan do NOT get Office 2019.
Existing Office software for Office 365 users already have all the features in Office 2019 plus a lot more.
When will it be released?
Office 2019 for Windows and Mac are now available to volume licence and commercial customers.
Individual sales of Office 2019 are now available from the usual retailers.
Which products?
Office 2019 for Windows will have Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access, Project, and Visio, depending on the bundle you get.
32-bit or 64-bit software.
OneNote is also listed but the Windows desktop software has already been given death sentence and the OneNote app is preferred. See Is Onenote really included in Office 2019?
A detailed and independent look at Windows 10, especially for Microsoft Office.
Fully up-to-date with coverage of the May 2019 major update of Windows 10.
This918 page book shows you important features and details for all serious Windows 10 users.
Features
According to Microsoft “Office 2019 includes a meaningful subset of features found in Office 365″. In other words, it has less than the current Office software sold to Office 365 customers.
There are no cloud-linked features in Office 2019. Features like Dictate, Designer, Linked Data Types, Excel dynamic arrays and Map Charts aren’t in Office 2019.
Here’s the current feature list from Microsoft which is not complete, but gives a good idea of what’s in and what’s not in Office 2019
Word
- Black theme
- Office sounds
- Learning tools captions and audio descriptions
- Text to speech
- Improved inking functionality
- Accessibility improvements
Excel
- Funnel charts and 2D maps
- New Excel functions and connectors
- Publish Excel to PowerBI
- PowerPivot enhancements
- PowerQuery enhancements
PowerPoint
- Zoom capabilities for ordering of slides within presentations
- Morph transition feature
- Insert and manage Icons, SVG, and 3D models
- Improved roaming pencil case
Outlook
- Updated contact cards
- Office 365 Groups (requires Exchange Server)
- @mentions
- Focused inbox
- Travel and delivery summary cards
Windows 10 only
Office 2019 for Windows will only work on Windows 10.
Microsoft can probably give some vague technical reasons for dropping Windows 7 and 8, the real reason is money. Microsoft has always used Office compatibility to push sales of newer Windows.
Click to Run
Office 2019 for Windows will only be available as a ‘Click to Run’ (CTR) install. The older single-download or .MSI install has been dropped.
Less Support
An important point about Office 2019 for Windows is the lower support entitlement. Microsoft says that Office 2019 will get ‘quality and security patch updates’ aka bug fixes for less time than the company’s own policy.
Microsoft own ‘fixed’ support policy gives customers five years of ‘mainstream’ support with patches for security and bugs then another five years of ‘extended’ support.
The ‘extended’ support has been shortened to two years instead of five. After 14 October 2025 (not 2028) there’ll be no security patches for Office 2019.
Prices
See Complete price list for Office 2019
Will there be future perpetual license Office releases?
The latest Microsoft comment is:
“We remain committed to on-premises customers and plan to do additional releases post Office 2019.”
That’s not a firm commitment to the future of non-cloud Microsoft Office. Only that Redmond ‘plans’ to have future releases. That doesn’t mean they will.
Elsewhere they say:
“We’re pleased to confirm that we’re committed to another on-premises release in the future.”
But Microsoft has gone back on commitments before, when it’s suited them. Office for Windows is supposed to have a ‘fixed’ support time which has been shortened for Office 2019.
The hard reality is, if there’s enough corporate demand, Microsoft will reluctantly release an ‘Office 2022’ or similar.
From Redmond’s marketing and pricing it’s little secret that Microsoft wants all customers to pay annual ‘subscriptions’ and will drop perpetual license Office if possible.
Running Office 2019 with Office 2016
You cannot install Office 2019 to run ‘side-by-side’ with Office 2016 or any earlier version of Office.
If you need multiple versions of Office, it’s much better to use virtual machines – either Hyper/V or VMWare Workstation. Windows 10 for Microsoft Office users has a chapter with step-by-step instructions on setting up a virtual machine with Microsoft Office.
More info
The Microsoft Office 2019 FAQ has the official line on Office 2019 using Microsoft’s own brand of corporate speak and weasel words.
Want More?
Office Watch has the latest news and tips about Microsoft Office.Independent since 1996. Delivered oncea week.
We never share your email address withanyone - never have, never will.Privacy Policy.
It’s the first day of Microsoft’s Ignite conference in Orlando, Florida, and the Seattle company has already made a slew of announcements. It launched a $40 million AI for Humanitarian Action initiative, introduced an Azure service to automatically build AI models, and debuted the Cortana Skills Kit, Surface Hub 2S and Surface Hub 2X, and AI-powered suggestions in Microsoft 365. Also on deck this morning? Microsoft Office 2019.
Starting today, Microsoft Office 2019 for Windows 10 and macOS — the direct successor to Office 2016 — is broadly available for volume licensed customers, with additional SKUs to come in the next few weeks. (Project, Visio, Access, and Publisher will only be available for Windows.) The newest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and more include a number of enhancements that have been added to Office 365 over the past three years, said Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Office and Windows Marketing. But unlike Office 365, they won’t receive future feature upgrades.
Among the many improvements is a Morph and Zoom effect in PowerPoint that enables users to create “cinematic presentations,” plus new data analysis tools in Excel, new formulas in PowerPivot, and improved inking features like pencil case, pressure sensitivity, and tilt effects. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, of course — Word 2019 and Outlook 2019 boast Focus Mode, which blocks out distractions, and Focused Inbox, which automatically highlights important emails. And the list goes on.
Above: PowerPoint 2019
On the IT side of the equation, Office 2019 sees updates to usability, voice, and security, and taps Microsoft’s Click-to-Run (C2R) deployment solution for monthly security updates, app installs, and reduced network consumption through Windows 10’s download optimization tech. Also in tow is support for in-place upgrades for customers upgrading from older Office products.
“Office 2019 is a valuable update for customers who aren’t yet ready for the cloud,” Spataro wrote in a blog post. “While the cloud offers real benefits in productivity, security, and total cost of ownership, we recognize that each customer is at a different point in their adoption of cloud services … Each time we release a new on-premises version of Office, customers ask us if this will be our last. We’re pleased to confirm that we’re committed to another on-premises release in the future.”
If an upgrade isn’t in your organization’s cards at the moment, don’t fret — Microsoft recently extended support for Office 2016 and Office 365 backend services to October 2023, with an optional two additional years of paid support. Office 365 ProPlus on Windows 8.1 and older operating systems, meanwhile, will be supported through January 2023.