Feature Comparison of Office Desktop Apps vs. Office on the Web Apps
This is an updated version of the article I wrote on September 8, 2017 titled Limitations of Office Online Applications.
Microsoft Office 365 supports both the desktop versions of Microsoft Office applications, which are installed on a workstation, and the online versions of Office applications that can be opened, viewed, and edited in a web browser. However, there are many differences between the two versions and this article documents some of the major differences.
When I wrote the aforementioned article on September 8, 2017, Microsoft used the name “Office Online apps” to refer to the browser-based versions of Office apps (e.g. Word Online, Excel Online, etc.). In July 2019, Microsoft dropped the name “Online” and switched to the name “Office web apps“, as reported by Engadget on July 24, 2019. Therefore, that’s the terminology I will use in this article.
The Office on the web versions are not offered as a replacement for the full-featured desktop Office applications, they are only offered so users can quickly read an Office document online, or make some minor changes to the application because most of the features in the desktop versions are not supported in the Office on the web version. The Office on the web apps in Office 365 can definitely come handy, but as you will discover after reading this article, there are just too many limitations in Office on the web apps that prevent a vast majority of organizations from using them as a replacement for desktop apps, which are full-featured applications with all the bells and whistles.
| Best Practice: Don’t work on the same document in both Office desktop app and Office on the web app to avoid data corruption and other support issues. Pick one version and stick with it. The Office desktop version is the recommended choice. |
The Office on the web apps may work for an individual at home, but it’s hard to find a business that is exclusively using Office Online apps because it’s just not practical. Use the following information to find out which features are missing from the Office on the web apps in Office 365. If you don’t see a feature that’s available in an Office Desktop app listed here, chances are that it would work in the Office on the web app. In other words, this is a list of features that are NOT AVAILABLE in Office Online. The primary source of information for this article is Office for the web Service Description and is provided here for future reference. This can be useful to readers because with each new version of the product, Microsoft replaces old content with the new version without any redirection of pages.
NOTE: The following lists were last updated on 7/31/2019. These are not complete lists, but they give you a good idea of which desktop app features are available in Office for the web. For complete, accurate, and updated lists of application features visit Microsoft. You will find additional details on Microsoft’s website that are not included here.
Word
Excel
PowerPoint
OneNote
You can download Microsoft’s 621-page PDF that contains the above lists plus lots of additional details. The live, updated version of the PDF document can be downloaded here.
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You only mentioned embed as the only disabled feature on desktop but there are many more, main one and most important the xlookup function in Excel which you can find on the web version but not on desktop. In summary, it’s a mess from Microsoft.
Macro scripting is NOT enabled on the Excel web app.