Microsoft Office (Word and Excel) - better on MacOS or Windows 11 ARM?

I have been running Windows 11 PRO ARM under Parallels. I have a subscription to Office 365 and I generally leave the installed versions on the Mac side of things. Is there any advantage or disadvantage of using Office (mainly Word and Excel) on the Windows side? I know I can still access the files on the Windows side using the Web version - but then the documents have to be uploaded to OneDrive instead of iCloud Drive (which I prefer because I also occasionally have to open an Excel file on my iPhone 12/iPad mini 6 using Numbers which is easy with the Excel files in iCloud).
Thanks

 

To begin with, please know that I use OneDrive, Google Drive, and iCloud Drive to manage data on my Mac, and to shared it across multiple Macs. I also allow Mac folders to be shared with all Virtual Machine running under Parallels. In addition Microsoft Office 365 is installed on the Mac side.

In Parallels VM I make sure to do several things --

• Within the Windows 11 environment I QUIT the local install of OneDrive, and then Uninstall OneDrive from the VM. This prevents any potential access conflict issues.
• I install MS Office apps on the Windows 11 side. These can be helpful at times, such as when I want to export a table from QuickBooks to Excel, or if a client sends me a document that uses Macros.

Having Office 365 available in the VM also helps with multi-tasking when sharing windows in a Zoom call as well.

 

Thanks for your input. I was just curious if installing the apps in a Windows environment was preferable to MacOS. Knowing MS that wouldn't have surprised me. LOL I was surprised and disappointed that the web versions could not access locally stored documents only if they are in OneDrive. I assume if i install the Windows version of iCloud the web version of Office still will not be able to access them.

 

It is not preferable unless you have some macros installed that only work in the Windows environment.
I suggest you turn off the settings in OneDrive that require you to "Use Office Applications to sync files that I open" and I would turn OFF "Files on Demand". If you are syncing OneDrive files on the Mac they will all be available to apps in Windows should you need them.

 

@SWANDY I can't see much of an advantage for the main apps, however, there are still some Windows Office apps that have no MacOS equivalent. e.g. Access and Publisher. And those are antiquated apps these days.

 

I was just looking for similar discussions. I find it interesting you would delete OneDrive from the Windows VM, instead of using OneDrive on Windows and then letting the Mac apps access to it (i.e. given OneDrive works so much better in the Windows environment vs Mac where they still have so many issues).

 

I generally do my Word and Excel work on the Mac side (just easier because I don't have to start the Windows VM). That is why I allow the Mac Office Apps to work off the document folders on the Mac which are then backed up by iCloud. I rarely (aside from playing with them) use the Office app on the Windows VM - hence my question if one version of Office (again only use Word and Excel - and their very basic parts) Windows vs Mac was any better. And because if I am on my iPad or iPhone and I need to look at a Word or Excel document, Apple Pages and Numbers will open the files as they are synced via iCloud to those devices also.

 

Ah in which case I think you kind of answered your own question, especially as the new M1 Office apps are getting very close to their Windows counterparts (particularly for the average user at least). Having said that, I've been in a bit of a quandary on whether just to transfer fully to iCloud instead of Onedrive, but I just use the office apps too much and the integration with Onedrive (even across iOS and MacOS devices) works too well.
Your other option is to use Parallels Access on your iPad to access the Windows VM apps.