What is Microsoft Office? Components, Uses, Pros & cons of MS Office

We can define MS office as an office suite used for business purposes. It is a collection of several applications including word, excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, etc. It supports all the versions of the windows operating system.

Microsoft office comes in two flavors, MS Office and Office 365. MS office is the traditional including includes basic MS office applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and documents.

Office 365 is the version of MS Office that you would use if you have an online account. Students, professionals, and business peoplusedely used Microsofworldwidethe world. This office suite gives a good user experience with its latest version, i.e., Microsoft Office 2016.

Components of MS Office

There are over five components of Microsoft Office that are helpful for people to complete their daily tasks. They are:

  • Microsoft Word
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft OneNote
  • Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Word

MS Word is a document creation application with many templates, styles, and fonts. This is one of the most commonly used applications with lots of add-ons that allow us to change it according to the needs.

Learn More About word. Copy & Paste, Find & Replace, Referencing, are some functions of MS Office.

Microsoft Excel

MS Excel is a spreadsheet application with formatting options, pivot tables, functions, and formulas. With the help of this application, we can create any kind of document. This is also one of the most commonly used software for creating professional data-driven documents.

Microsoft PowerPoint

It is a presentation creation tool that allows us to enhance our talk. With the help of this application, we can make professional presentations. In short, it is used for creating and delivering presentations and other business documents.

MS PowerPoint has some auto-generated templates for presenting a document. You can also animate your document through PPT, Slideshart, and add videos and audio.

Microsoft OneNote

MS OneNote is an application for note taking, capturing ideas, and keeping them as a record. We also used it for creating charts and graphs or creating class notes. It should be said that this is the most used application in Microsoft Office after MS word, excel, and PowerPoint.

Microsoft Outlook

MS Outlook is an email application that supports multiple e-mail accounts, automatic replies, and scheduling messages. This is helpful for us to stay in touch with other people and manage our communication effectively.

Microsoft Access

MS Access is a database application that allows us to manage databases and create websites.

Experts for designing and maintaining databases used it. Even though this is not the main application of MS office, it has someessentialt features such as drawing tables, form macros, and clicking on forms.

uses of MS Office

Uses of Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is a tool for creating data-driven business documents. This includes many templates with different styles for creating reports, presentations, letters, and books.

MS office is helpful for students to create presentations on their assignments, notes on the lectures, and documents filled with research information. Below are some other uses of MS Office:

1. Use for preparing the data report

The data report is a common assignment given to the students of Business Administration courses, Statistics classes, Mathematics classes, etc.

If they use MS Word, they can create a professional-looking data presentation. Students can use different styles and formats in MS word to create professional-looking reports.

2. Helps in preparation of Dashboard

This application is helpful for students of IT, Computer Science, and Web Design classes to create dashboards with the help of Microsoft Access and MS Excel. They can use this application to create detailed reports before giving them to the concerned authorities.

3. Data Sorting

One of the most important functions of MS Excel is sorting data. This is a very helpful application for students who are preparing their final thesis, assignments, or project reports. MS Excel can be used to sort and analyze data on different criteria.

4. referencing

Referencing is not a common practice for students, but it is becoming a trend in the world of education.

Students are now using MS Office as a tool for referencing and saving the data from their coursework or projects. APA, MLA, and IEEE referencing styles are widely accepted in the world of education and business.

5. Macros

In order to achieve the advanced features of MS Office, we can use macros. Macros allow us to automate various actions and functions. Business professionals and students also use macros in different fields to save time, money, and energy.

Pros and Cons of Microsoft Office

MS Office is a powerful office suite that helps us in completing our daily tasks effectively. But it also has its limitations. We can look for the merits and demerits of Microsoft Office to compare it with other office suites such as Google, OpenOffice, and LibreOffice.

advantages of MS Office

1. Ease to Use

Since MS office comes in five different components, it is suitable for both computer beginners and advanced users. It also supports online connectivity, cloud storage facilities, etc. As a result, it is widely used all over the world.

2. Cost

MS Office is available at an affordable cost. Students and professionals obtaining their degrees can use this application with the help of Microsoft Academic Licensing. Small businesses also use MS Office to create professional documents with small budgets.

3. Online Support

A huge library is available on the Microsoft website. We can find different documentation, blogs, tutorials, solution search engines, etc. We can also get direct answers to our queries from the online support team Microsoft.

4. Security

MS Office is considered to be very secure software. It is used by various industries such as banking, finance, and government, etc. As a result, it also comes with a security feature called Intrusion Detection System (IDS).

5. Support for many languages

This software has support for different languages and character sets. We can use this application to create documents in different languages such as English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, etc.

Disadvantages of Microsoft Office

As earlier we discussed some advantages of MS office, here we will talk about some disadvantages MS Office. Many people are using this application for different purposes, but it is not the best option for every use.

Disadvantages of MS Office

1. Slow performance

This application works as a big software with various features and functions. Due to this, it takes time to open different files and launch applications.

2. Compatibility issues

This software supports all the latest versions of operating systems, but sometimes it doesn’t support the older ones. If you are using an older version of the operating system, you might face some compatibility issues.

3. Bug problems

We all know that this software is not perfect. Sometimes we face some bugs in the application and other times it may cause us some problems opening certain files. Bugs mean that the software is not yet complete and still needs some upgrades.

4. Some advanced features are not available

This software has a lot of advanced features but some of them are not available yet. We need to wait until the developers complete their development.

5. Troubleshooting problems

Sometimes we face some troubleshooting problems while using MS Office. We need to find solutions from different online blogs and forums. This software is still not fully developed and sometimes it needs some tweaks and patches.

6. Higher RAM usage

Microsoft Office Suite uses a lot of RAM. This is the main reason for which we do not recommend it to keep it on the same computer.

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FAQs

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Final Words

MS Office is one of the most common office suites. It comes in five different components and supports different operating systems such as Windows, Mac, and Linux. It is powerful software that helps us in completing our daily tasks effectively.

This application comes with some basic features, but it also has advanced features that help in saving our time, money, and energy. Professionals can use the advanced features to design professional dashboards.

We can also use this application to create a professional-looking data presentation. Students can use this software to complete their daily tasks such as thesis reports, assignments, and projects. Many people are using this application for different purposes.

But it is not suitable for every use. We hope you like this article. We will keep updating this article as we receive feedback on it. Thank you for reading.