What Is The Difference Between Microsoft Office Classic and Premium
June 15, 2020 - by Bill Jelen
What do you lose when you choose Microsoft Office Classic instead of Premium? A lot! Our recommendation at MrExcel is that you should never buy Office 2019. It is obsolete and missing important features.
While Classic Office provides the basic features, you won’t be getting any of the shiny new features that Microsoft is investing heavily in now.
The retail box for Microsoft Office 2019 Home & Student makes it clear that you are not getting Outlook, Access or Publisher when you buy Excel 2019. But in the feature description for Word, Excel, Power Point and OneNote it says that you are getting “Classic” instead of “Premium”. What does that really mean?
I don’t think it is fair for Microsoft to not explain what you are losing when you choose the Classic version of Excel. I can’t find any description of what you get in Excel Classic versus Excel Premium, so I made my own:
| Feature | Classic | Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Can use SUM function | • | • |
| VLOOKUP | • | • |
| XLOOKUP (superior to VLOOKUP in every way) | • | |
| Automate with VBA | • | • |
| Automate with M (using Power Query) | • | • |
| Automate with TypeScript | • | |
| Import PDF files Using Power Query | • | |
| Fuzzy Matching in Power Query | • | |
| Data Profiling in Power Query | • | |
| Intellisene in Power Query | • | |
| Create Pivot Tables | • | • |
| Set Defaults for Future Pivot Tables | • | • |
| Power Pivot | • | • |
| Collaborate: Multiple people editing same workbook | • | |
| Dynamic Array formulas | • | |
| Functions like SORT, FILTER, UNIQUE, SEQUENCE | • | |
| Data Types for Geography, Stocks, Exchange Rates | • | |
| STOCKHISTORY function for historical stock & exchange rates | • | |
| Artificial Intelligence to analyze your data | • | |
| Insert Cutout People in your documents | • | |
| Smart Lookup | • | |
| Sheet View (improvement on Custom Views) | • | |
| Picture Transparency | • | |
| Ink to Shape | • | |
| Store variables in formulas with LET function | • |
The simple fact: Excel 2019 includes most features released before March 2018. It does not include any of the new Artificial Intelligence features. You don’t get the new Wolfram Alpha data types. You won’t get the new calculation engine that was rewritten and released in September 2019. The Excel team describes the new collaboration feature as “Excel’s Moon Shot”, but you won’t be able to collaborate if you buy Office 2019.
If you want the latest and greatest features, the best route is to subscribe to Microsoft 365. There are various plans for home, student, or business. Any of those should deliver the power you need in Excel.
How about Word? What is lost if you choose Word Classic instead of Premium? You won’t get the Dictation feature. The Resume creator is missing. Ink gestures, the new commenting tools, follow-ups, and Transform to Sway are all missing. The “Editor” icon offers improvements to grammar and spelling checker in Word.
In PowerPoint, you will lose: Subtitles and Live Captions for Presentations. The AI-based Designer is not available. Enhancements to Morph are not available. You can not re-use slides.
Several features are common to Office Premium and will be missing from Excel, Word, and PowerPoint: Ink to Shape, Picture Transparency, Cutout People, Sensitivity Labels, @Mentions in Comments.
MrExcel’s recommendation: Take Office 2019 out of your shopping cart and go with a subscription to Microsoft 365.
Thanks to Word MVP Ute Simon and Office MVP David Benaim for providing the lists of features missing from Word and Power Point.