| Microsoft Office 2013 | |
|---|---|
| Developer | Microsoft |
| Initial release | January 29, 2013; 12 years ago (2013-01-29)[1] |
| Stable release | |
| Operating system | Windows 7 or later Windows Server 2008 R2 or later[3] |
| Platform | IA-32,x64,ARM |
| Predecessor | Microsoft Office 2010 (2010) |
| Successor | Microsoft Office 2016 (2015) |
| Available in | 40 languages[4] |
List of languages English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese | |
| Type | Office suite |
| License | Trialware[5] OneNote: Freemium (since 2014) |
| Website | products |
Microsoft Office 2013 (codenamedOffice 15[6]) is a version ofMicrosoft Office, aproductivity suite forMicrosoft Windows. Unlike with Office 2010, nomacOS equivalent was released.
Microsoft Office 2013 includes extended file format support,user interface updates and support for touch among its new features and is suitable forIA-32 andx64 systems.[7]
Office 2013 is compatible withWindows 7 andWindows Server 2008 R2 throughWindows 11 v21H2 andWindows Server 2022.[8][9][10][11][8] A version of Office 2013 comes included onRT devices.[12][3] It is the last version of Microsoft Office to supportWindows 7 RTM andWindows Server 2008 R2 RTM.
Development on this version of Microsoft Office was started in 2010 and ended on October 11, 2012, when Microsoft Office 2013 wasreleased to manufacturing.[13] Microsoft released Office 2013 togeneral availability on January 29, 2013.[1] This version includes new features such as integration support for online services (includingOneDrive,Outlook.com,Skype,Viva Engage andFlickr), improved format support forOffice Open XML (OOXML),OpenDocument (ODF) andPortable Document Format (PDF) and support formulti-touch interfaces.
Microsoft Office 2013 comes in twelve different editions, including three editions for retail outlets, two editions for volume licensing channel, five subscription-based editions available throughMicrosoft Office 365 program, the web application edition known asOffice Web Apps and the Office RT edition made for tablets and mobile devices. Office Web Apps are available free of charge onthe web although enterprises may obtain on-premises installations for a price. Microsoft Office applications may be obtained individually; this includesMicrosoft Visio,Microsoft Project andMicrosoft SharePoint Designer which are not included in any of the twelve editions.
Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released on February 25, 2014.[14] Support for the original release (RTM) ended on April 14, 2015, and Service Pack 1 is required for receiving updates and support. Support for Office 2013 ended on April 11, 2023.[15]
On June 9, 2018, Microsoft announced that its forums would no longer include Office 2013 or other products in extended support among its products for discussions involving support.[16] On August 27, 2021, Microsoft announced that Microsoft Outlook 2013 SP1 with all subsequent updates will be required to connect to Microsoft 365 Exchange servers by November 1, 2021; Outlook 2013 without SP1 will no longer be supported.[17][18][additional citation(s) needed][inconsistent]
Office 2013 removed support for processors withoutPAE,SSE2 andNX and is also the final version ofMicrosoft Office that supports processors without PrefetchW, LAHF and SAHF. Its successor,Office 2016, requires a processor with PrefetchW, LAHF and SAHF in any supported architecture. It is also the final version of Microsoft Office to receive aService Pack from Microsoft.
Despite the end of support for Office 2013 in April 2023, monthly security patches for the Office suite programs was available until November 2023.[2][19]
Development started in 2010 whileMicrosoft was finishing work on Office 14, released asMicrosoft Office 2010. On January 30, 2012, Microsoft released a technical preview of Office 15, build 3612.1010, to a selected group of testers bound bynon-disclosure agreements.[20]
On July 16, 2012, Microsoft held a press conference to showcase Office 2013 and to release theConsumer Preview.[21] The Office 2013 Consumer Preview is a free, fully functional version but will expire 60 days after the final product's release.[22][23] An update was issued for the Office 2013 Customer Preview suite on October 5.[24]
Office 2013 wasreleased to manufacturing on October 11, 2012.[13] It was made available toTechNet andMSDN subscribers on October 24, 2012.[25] On November 15, 2012, 60-days trial versions of Microsoft Office 2013 Professional Plus,Project Professional 2013 andVisio Professional 2013 were made available to the public over theInternet.[5][26] Microsoft has released Office 2013 forgeneral availability on January 29, 2013.[1] Microsoft released the Service Pack 1 update on February 25, 2014.[27]
Office 2013 introduces Click-To-Run 2.0 installation technology forall editions based onMicrosoft App-V Version 5.[28] Previously, only certain editions of Office 2010 were available with Click-To-Run 1.0 installer technology, which was based on App-V 4.x, where a separate Q drive was created and installed files of Office were isolated from the rest of the system, causing many Office add-ins to not be compatible.[29] With the newer Click-To-Run technology, Office 2013 installs files just like Windows Installer (MSI) to the Program Files directory. Retail versions of Office 2013 use the Click-to-Run installer. Volume-licensed versions useWindows Installer (MSI) technology.[30] Some editions like Professional Plus are available in both retail (C2R) and volume (MSI) channels.
Office 2013 is morecloud-based than previous versions; adomain login, Office 365 account, orMicrosoft account can now be used to sync Office application settings (including recent documents) between devices, and users can also save documents directly to theirOneDrive account.[31]
Microsoft Office 2013 includes updated support for ISO/IEC 29500, the International Standard version ofOffice Open XML (OOXML) file format: in particular it supports saving in the "Strict" profile of ISO/IEC 29500 (Office Open XML Strict).[32] It also supports OASIS version 1.2 of ISO/IEC 26300:2006,Open Document Format,[32] which Office 2013 can read and write.[33] Additionally, Office 2013 provides full read, write, and edit support forISO 32000 (PDF).
New features include a new read mode inMicrosoft Word, a presentation mode inMicrosoft PowerPoint and improvedtouch and inking in all of the Office programs. Microsoft Word can also insert video and audio from online sources as well as the capability to broadcast documents on the Web.[34] Word and PowerPoint also have bookmark-like features which sync the position of the document between different computers.
TheOffice Web Apps suite was also updated for Office 2013, introducing additional editing features and interface changes.[35]
Other features of Office 2013 include:
| Object | Upper limit |
|---|---|
| Characters in a table or column name | 100 characters |
| Number of tables in a model | 2,147,483,647 bytes (2GB minus 1 byte) |
| Number of columns and calculated columns in a table | 2,147,483,647 bytes (2 GB minus 1 byte) |
| Memory limit, checked when saving a workbook | 4,294,967,296 bytes (4 GB) |
| Concurrent requests per workbook | 6 |
| Number of connections | 5 |
| Number of distinct values in a column | 1,999,999,997 |
| Number of rows in a table | 1,999,999,997 |
| String length | 536,870,912 bytes (512MB) |
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Reserved characters that cannot be used in a Name1 | . , ; ' ` : / \ * | ? " & % $ ! + = () [] {} < > |
The following features were removed from Microsoft Office 2013.
Unlike past versions of Office, retail copies of Office 2013 onDVD are only offered in select regions, such as those Microsoft classifies asemerging markets, as well asAustralia, at the discretion of retailers. In all other regions, retail copies of Office 2013 and Office 365 subscriptions only contain aproduct key, and direct users to the Office website to redeem their license and download the software.[49][50]
The original license agreement for retail editions of Microsoft Office 2013 was different from the license agreements of retail editions of previous versions of Microsoft Office in two significant ways.[51] The first of these was that the software could no longer be transferred to another computer. In previous versions of Office, this restriction applied only toOEM editions; retail Office license agreements allowed uninstalling from one computer to install on another computer.[51]
Digitally downloaded copies of Office were also said to be permanently locked to that PC's hardware, preventing it from being transferred to any other computing device. Should the buyer have wished to use Office 2013 on a different computer, or if they later became unable to use the computing device that the original license was downloaded to (e.g. hardware became inoperable due to malfunction) then a completely new, full-priced copy of Office 2013 would have to have been purchased to replace the prior one.[51] Microsoft stated that this change was related to thesoftware piracy that has been rampant for years, worldwide.[52] However, many commentators saw this change as an effort to forcibly move its customers towards the subscription-based business model used by theOffice 365 service.[53][54][55] The legality of this move, particularly inEurope, has been questioned.[56]
However, on March 6, 2013, Microsoft announced that equivalent transfer rights to those in the Office 2010 retail license agreements are applicable to retail Office 2013 copies effective immediately. Transfer of license from one computer to another owned by the same user is now allowed every 90 days, except in the case of hardware failure, in which the license may be moved sooner. The first user of the product is now also allowed to transfer it to another user.[57][58] The second difference, which remains in the updated licensing agreement, is that the software can be installed on only one computer. In previous versions of Office, this restriction also applied only toOEM editions; retail Office license agreements allowed installing the product on two or three computers, depending on the edition.[51]
Microsoft requires an account in order to activate any Office edition from 2013 on.

As with previous versions, Office 2013 is made available in several distinct editions aimed towards different markets. All traditional editions of Microsoft Office 2013 contain at leastWord,Excel,PowerPoint andOneNote and are licensed for use on one computer.
Five traditional editions of Office 2013 were released:
| Word | Excel | PowerPoint | OneNote | Outlook | Publisher | Access | InfoPath | Lync | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home & Student | + | + | + | + | |||||
| Home & Business | + | + | + | + | + | ||||
| Standard | + | + | + | + | + | + | |||
| Professional | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | ||
| Professional Plus | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + |
The Office 365 subscription services, which were previously aimed towards business and enterprise users, were expanded for Office 2013 to include new plans aimed at home use. The subscriptions allow use of the Office 2013 applications by multiple users using asoftware as a service model. Different plans are available for Office 365, some of which also includevalue-added services, such as 20 GB ofOneDrive storage (later increased to 1 TB) and 60Skype minutes per month on the new Home Premium plan.[61] These new subscription offerings were positioned as a new option for consumers wanting a cost-effective way to purchase and use Office on multiple computers in their household.[62]
A special version of Office 2013, initially known as Office 2013 Home & Student RT, is shipped with allWindows RT devices. It initially consisted of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. In Windows RT 8.1, the suite was renamed Office 2013 RT and Outlook was added. The edition, whilst visually indistinguishable from normal versions of Office 2013, contains special optimizations forARM-based devices, such as changes to reduce battery usage (including, for example, freezing the animation of the blinking cursor for text editing during periods of inactivity), enabling touch mode by default to improve usability on tablets, and using the graphics portion of a device'sSoC for hardware acceleration.[63][64][65]
Windows RT devices on launch were shipped with a "preview" version of Office Home & Student 2013 RT. The release date for the final version varied depending on the user's language, and was distributed throughWindows Update when released.[65] On June 5, 2013, Microsoft announced that Windows RT 8.1 would add Outlook to the suite in response to public demand.[66]
Office RT modifies or excludes other various features for compatibility reasons or resource reduction. To save disk space; templates, clip art, and language packs are downloaded online rather than stored locally. Other excluded features include the removal of support for third-party code such as macros/VBA/ActiveX controls, the removal of support for older media formats and narration in PowerPoint, editing of equations generated with the legacy Equation Editor,data models in Excel (PivotCharts, PivotTables, and QueryTables are unaffected), searching embedded media files in OneNote, along withdata loss prevention, Group Policy support, and creating e-mails with information rights management in Outlook.[66][67]
As the version of Office RT included on Windows RT devices is based on the Home & Student version, it cannot be used for "commercial, nonprofit, or revenue-generating activities" unless the organization has a volume license for Office 2013 already, or the user has an Office 365 subscription with commercial use rights.[68]
Alongside Office RT, free versions of OneNote and the Lync client were made available asWindows Storeapps.[69] The OneNote app, originally known asOneNote MX, contains a limited feature set in comparison to its desktop version, but is also optimized for use on tablets.[70] The OneNote app has since received several major updates, including camera integration, printing abilities, and multiple inking options.
Universal Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps were released in 2015.[71][needs update]
Windows Phone 8 ships with an updated version of theOffice Mobile suite, consisting of mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. In comparison to theirWindows Phone 7 versions, the new versions add an improved Office Hub interface that can sync recently opened and modified documents (including changes to documents stored via Office 365 and SkyDrive),[72] a separated OneNote app with additional features (such as voice notes and integration with the new "Rooms" functionality of the OS), and improved document editing and viewing functionality.[73]
In June 2013, Microsoft released a version of Office Mobile foriPhone; it is similar to the Windows Phone version, but originally requires an Office 365 subscription to use.[74] A version forAndroidsmartphones was released in July 2013; it, too, originally needed Office 365 for use.[75]
Apps foriPad andAndroidtablet computers were released in March 2014 and January 2015, respectively.[76][77] These, along with theirsmartphone equivalents, have been made free for personal use, though certain premium features have beenpaywalled and require Office 365, which includes licensing of the apps for business use.
Windows 10 Mobile that was released in December 2015 included new Office apps, more in line with their iPhone and Android equivalent, and making use of the "universal app" platform pioneered.[78][79]
| As an individual product | Traditional editions[59][60][80] | Office 365 subscriptions[59][81] | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Office RT | Home & Student | Home & Business | Standard | Professional | Professional Plus | Personal[82] | Home | University[83] | Small Business Premium | ProPlus | Enterprise | ||
| Availability | Varies | Windows RT | Retail,OEM | Retail,OEM | Volume licensing | Retail,OEM | Retail5,Volume licensing | Software plus services | Software plus services | Software plus services | Software plus services | Software plus services | Software plus services |
| Maximum users | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | As licensed | 1 | As licensed | 1 | all users in one household[84] | 1 | 10 | 25[85] | Unlimited |
| Devices per user | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | As licensed | 1 | As licensed | 1 computer and 1 mobile | 5 shared among all users[84] | 2 computers and 2 mobiles | 5 | 5[85] | 5 |
| Commercial use allowed? | Yes | Separate2 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No[86] | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Word | Yes | Yes1 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Excel | Yes | Yes1 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PowerPoint | Yes | Yes1 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| OneNote | Yes3 | Yes1 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Outlook | Yes | Yes1 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Publisher | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Access | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| InfoPath | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No4 | Yes | Yes |
| Lync | Yes3 | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SharePoint Designer | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Project Has multiple editions | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Visio Has multiple editions | Yes | No | Viewer | Viewer | Viewer | Viewer | Viewer | Viewer | Viewer | Viewer | Viewer | Viewer | Viewer |
Each Microsoft Office 2013 application has the following requirements, although there may be app-specific requirements.[91]
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| CPU | 1 GHzclock speed,IA-32 orx64 architecture withSSE2 support |
| RAM | IA-32 edition: 1 GB x64 edition: 2 GB |
| Hard disk drive | 3.0 GB free disk space |
| Operating system | Windows 7,Windows Server 2008 R2 or later |
| Software | .NET Framework 3.5 or later |
In addition to these, graphicshardware acceleration requires ascreen resolution of 1024×576pixels or larger and aDirectX 10-compliantGPU with at least 64 MB ofvideo memory (in case of absence of the required hardware, however, Office 2013 applications can still run without graphics acceleration.)[91]