MS Office Student vs Professional: Difference and Comparison

MS Office is available in various editions and suites used for different purposes. MS office students and MS Office professionals are some of them.

Students use the student edition, and casual users who need core applications like word, excel, and PowerPoint; the professional edition of MS Office includes some different applications.

Key Takeaways

1. MS Office Student is designed for students and home users who require basic software applications. In contrast, MS Office Professional suits businesses and professionals needing advanced features and tools.
2. MS Office Professional includes additional applications such as Access, Publisher, and Skype for Business, which are unavailable in MS Office Student.
3. MS Office Student is less expensive than MS Office Professional, making it a more affordable option for individuals with basic needs.

MS Office Student vs MS Office Professional

MS Office Student contains the most basic applications of MS Office. In contrast, MS Office professional has three additional applications, namely, outlook, access and publisher, and so provide more comprehensive services to commercial professionals. The professional edition costs more than the student edition as its benefits are higher than the student edition services.

MS Office student edition is widely used non-commercial by students and casual users in which standard MS Office applications are available through which the goals of primary users are achieved.

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are the core applications that a primary user needs.

MS Office professional is like a definitive edition to the standard edition, which provides three additional applications to help the professionals of the corporate world to manage their several work strategies.

Outlook is an information manager that manages emails, contacts, and tasks.

Comparison Table

Parameters of Comparison	MS Office Student	MS Office Professional
Definition	They are designed for students with all the necessary and minimal applications required for a student.	They are designed for professionals with different applications required at work.
Applications provided	Applications: word, excel, and PowerPoint.	In addition to core applications, it also provides outlook, access, and publisher.
Price	Cheaper	Quite costly.
Technical support	Offers 90 days of free technical support from Microsoft.	Offers 1 year of free technical support from Microsoft.
License	Microsoft only provides it for non-commercial usage.	For both commercial and non-commercial usage.

What is MS Office Student?

Students and teachers widely use MS Office students at home and school for daily data management. The student edition is a word used to maintain any document in written form or to preserve any other information.

Other applications are excel and PowerPoint; Excel is a spreadsheet application containing visualisation tools for managing and analysing data.

PowerPoint creates a presentation using text, images, sounds, animations, and many other tools. In addition to these core applications, in MS Office 2019, the student version of OneNote is also available.

Student edition can be installed on one PC or MAC, and it is compatible with windows 10, Mac OS 10.12, and up. It falls under the one-time purchase category.

This edition is cheaper than other editions and sufficient for a casual user with moderate work. Microsoft also offers their professional tech teams free 90 days of technical support.

If an individual faces any difficulties while using it, they can call the Microsoft techs, and their issue will be solved by the tech team of Microsoft free of cost until their 90 days period is valid.

What is MS Office Professional?

MS Office professional is used for corporations and large businesses. Along with the basic applications, it has three more applications that are powerful for corporate professionals at work time.

Those are outlook, access, and publisher.

1. Outlook- Outlook is an information managing application it keeps track of all your emails and informs you about all the new activities so that you do not miss out on anything and can plan your schedule accordingly. It helps busy professionals cope with their hectic schedules without missing tasks or activities.
2. Access is a database managing application that provides a platform for storing massive data with various functionalities like creating, modifying and finding the data. It is an essential application for those who work where data is managed through databases.
3. Publisher- a desktop publication program that helps create publications for companies or any other general cause.

 It is a one-time purchase-type edition that can be installed only on one PC. It is compatible with Windows 10 only. It is a bit expensive while purchase but worth every penny as it provides various applications.

Main Differences Between MS Office Student and Professional

1. The student edition is for casual and personal use, whereas the professional edition is strictly for corporate and business tasks.
2. The student edition contains the essential MS Office applications, which are word, excel, and PowerPoint. In contrast, the professional edition provides more essential apps, outlook, access, and publisher, for making the work of a busy professional an easy task.
3. The student edition costs less compared to the professional edition.
4. In both editions, free technical support is provided. The acceptable line difference between them is the tenure for free support services. In the case of the student edition, it is 90 days, and in the professional edition, it is one year.
5. The student edition is licensed for personal or can term as non-commercial usage only, and on the other hand, the professional edition is licensed for commercial usage only.

References

1. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SKpCAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT15&dq=Microsoft+office+professionals&ots=xqiq_Cvkdu&sig=npqeWvuaysX2Xw6ck5lEdy61b8M
2. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=7RUIAAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=Microsoft+office+students&ots=PoTiYGfzB6&sig=Lf5LsxyHuwepbj1JKJkGF8-LMXM