Office 2013 vs 2016: What Changed and Which One to Pick

Office 2013 vs 2016 is a close pair: Office 2016 keeps the 2013 layout and adds Power Query built into Excel, new chart types, the Tell Me box and better shared editing. The bigger split is technical. Office 2013 is version 15.0, while 2016 is 16.0, the same number newer Office uses.

Office 2013 vs 2016 at a glance

Open both side by side and you’d struggle to spot the difference at first. Same ribbon idea. Same core apps.

The gaps show up in Excel, in the Tell Me box and under the hood. We’d put it this way: 2016 is the 2013 suite with a newer engine number and a stronger Excel. If your work lives in spreadsheets, that matters. If you write letters, it barely does.

Version numbers: 15.0 and 16.0

Small detail, big consequences.

Office 2013 carries version 15.0. Office 2016 moved to 16.0, and Microsoft kept that number for every perpetual release since, plus Microsoft 365. You can see it under File, Account, About in Word.

• Group Policy. Settings saved under the 16.0 registry path keep working on newer releases.
• Add-ins. Microsoft says add-ins that work with 2016 are likely to work with 2019 too, with minimal testing.
• Side by side. The version number decides which installs can share a PC. More on that below.

For an IT team, that 16.0 line is often the real reason to prefer 2016 over 2013.

What Office 2016 added in Excel

This is where the upgrade earns its name.

• Get & Transform. Power Query technology, built in, on the Data tab. Excel 2013 needed a separate add-in with its own tab.
• Waterfall charts. Running totals, good for cash flow.
• Treemap and sunburst. Hierarchies at a glance.
• Histogram and Pareto. Distributions, without building bins by hand.
• Box and whisker. Spread and outliers.

Microsoft has deprecated the Power Query add-in for Excel 2013, though it still lets people use it as a courtesy. On 2016 nothing extra is needed. Funnel charts? Microsoft’s Ignite session counts them among the 2016 additions too.

Spreadsheet-heavy users will feel these more than anything else on this page. Our guide to calculating variance in Excel works on both versions.

Tell Me, Smart Lookup and the ribbon

A text box on the ribbon. You type what you want to do, and Office jumps to the command.

That’s Tell Me, new in the 2016 apps and absent from 2013. Microsoft may label it Search on newer builds; it works the same. Smart Lookup sits in the same place and looks up a selected word or phrase. Handy when you can’t remember which tab hides a command, and we’d call it the most visible 2016 change for casual users.

Working together on documents

Both versions let several people edit a Word file. The setup differs.

Word 2013 co-authoring needs SharePoint Foundation 2013, or OneDrive with a Microsoft account. Word 2016 supports editing at the same time as others too. The live view? Subscribers only. On a one-time 2016 license you’d save now and then to see the others’ changes.

Teams that work in shared files all day might look past both, toward Microsoft 365 or Office 2024.

Apps in the Professional Plus boxes: Office 2013 vs 2016

Close, with two swaps. From our product pages:

InfoPath stopped at 2013. Microsoft confirms that 2013 was the last version, so forms built in it are a reason some offices keep the older suite. The 2013 box also installed the Telemetry Dashboard for IT teams.

The details for each box are on the Office Professional Plus 2013 key and Office 2016 Professional Plus key pages. Home users? We’d point them to Office 2016 Home and Business instead.

Office 2013 vs 2016 system requirements

Modest on both. Any PC from the last decade clears them.

The 2013 hardware baseline, from Microsoft’s own requirements page:

• Processor. 1 GHz or faster, x86 or x64, with SSE2.
• Memory. 1 GB for 32-bit, 2 GB for 64-bit.
• Disk. 3 GB free.
• Display. 1024 x 576, plus a DirectX 10 card for graphics acceleration.
• .NET. 3.5, 4.0 or 4.5.

Microsoft’s current pages fold 2016 into one list with the newer releases, and Windows 7 SP1 is the floor there. Our 2016 Professional Plus page says the same, Windows 11 included.

Click-to-Run, MSI and running both on one PC

Both versions came in two install types. Click-to-Run arrived with Office 2013; MSI is the classic Windows Installer.

Microsoft’s rules for sharing one PC are short:

• Two Click-to-Run installs of different versions. Not if their apps overlap.
• One of them installed with MSI. Side by side can work.
• 32-bit next to 64-bit. Never.
• Install order. Older first, newer second.

Volume copies of Office 2016 use MSI. That’s the type that can share a PC with another version. To check yours, look under File, Account. See an Update Options button? Then it’s Click-to-Run. More background is in our page on Microsoft Office Click-to-Run.

Office 2016 on a Mac

Only one of the two exists there. The 2013 requirements list nothing but Windows.

The 2016 release has a Mac edition. Our Office Home and Business 2016 for Mac key covers one Mac and is redeemed at setup.office.com with a Microsoft account. The whole range is in the Office 2016 for Mac category.

Office 2013 or 2016: which one to pick

For most people, 2016. The reasons line up quickly:

• Heavy Excel work. 2016, for Get & Transform and the new charts.
• InfoPath forms in daily use. 2013, since InfoPath didn’t continue.
• A Mac. 2016, the only one of the two with a Mac edition.
• Lync-based setups. 2013 ships Lync; 2016 ships Skype for Business.
• Policies shared with newer Office. 2016, thanks to the 16.0 version line.
• Same letters, same slides, nothing fancy. Either. Pick by price.

Both are perpetual one-time licenses. No subscription, and they don’t expire. Neither fits? Our Microsoft Office versions guide compares the newer releases. Office 2021 vs 2024 picks up where this page ends.

Moving from either to a newer Office

Uninstall first. Microsoft recommends removing older Office before installing a newer volume release.

The Office Deployment Tool can remove MSI installs of Office 2016 and Office 2013 as part of a new install. Our Office Deployment Tool guide shows the setting. For a home PC, the Office uninstall tool clears leftovers. Moving a license to a new computer? See our guide to transferring Office.

Common mistakes when comparing Office 2013 and 2016

• Expecting a new look. The layout barely changed.
• Looking for Get & Transform in 2013. It’s the separate Power Query add-in there.
• Installing two Click-to-Run versions with the same apps. Not supported.
• Mixing 32-bit and 64-bit. Also not supported.
• Searching for InfoPath 2016. There isn’t one.
• Using one key for the other version. A 2013 key activates 2013; a 2016 key activates 2016.

Need a key for either? The Office 2013 product key and Office 2016 product key categories have both, sent instant to email.

Words used on this page

Microsoft’s own rules for mixing versions are on its supported install scenarios page, and the 2013 baseline is in the Office 2013 system requirements.

Related guides

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