🌟 Important Update for UK Charities: Microsoft 365 free licensing is changing

Tue, 1 Jul 2025 09:00:00 +0200

From 1 July 2025 Microsoft has announced that it will end free licenses for charities for
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium
- Office 365 E1

If your organisation currently benefits from this free licensing it’s time to prepare for a change.

Your free licenses will expire at your next renewal date after 1 July 2025. This change does not affect any paid-for Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

✅ What’s Still Available for free?

Microsoft remains committed to supporting nonprofits and eligible organisations will still have access to:
- Up to 300 free Microsoft 365 Business Basic licenses
- Discounts of up to 75% on other Microsoft 365 plans, including Business Premium
This means you can still access Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, etc. - just with a different product and licensing.

💡 How Entec Can Help Your Charity Navigate the Change
Technology transitions can be daunting - especially if you’ve limited IT resources. Entec, with 19 years of experience supplying charities, can help make the change as smooth and cost-effective as possible with:
License Audit & Planning
We’ll help you review your current Microsoft 365 usage and identify the best mix of free and discounted licenses for your team.
Migration & Setup Support
Whether you’re moving users to Business Basic or upgrading to discounted Business Premium, we’ll handle the...

Adobe Express

Sun, 1 Jun 2025 16:55:00 +0200

Adobe Express

You may have seen Adobe’s prime-time TV ads in recent weeks, heavily promoting this new online creative application.

Express provides easy-to-use design tools which could help those in education and not for profit organisations, and not familiar with creative design apps, to create materials for teaching or conveying key messages. Depending on your needs it could be for free.
To use Express you don’t need to know how to use applications such as Adobe’s Photoshop or InDesign. When Adobe first demonstrated Express to their resellers they used the example of a person in an admin role given the task of organising a St Patrick’s Day pizza party for the office. Starting from scratch, in just a few minutes, they created an appealing flier that could be printed for noticeboards, emailed or messaged.

There are user-friendly templates and AI-powered features that make designing quick and easy - even if you’ve never done this sort of thing before. That’s the point Adobe are emphasising. It’s certainly worth a look.

Costs:

As a reminder, the TLP buying program (TLP stands for Transactional Licensing Program) will end on 31 May 2025. This change by Adobe is effective worldwide. Many Entec customers will be familiar with the Adobe Acrobat Pro 2020 perpetual license (£208.33 + VAT from Adobe's TLP license scheme) that has proved exceedingly popular over the years.

In the future, for purchases of Acrobat, customers will need to use the Adobe VIP subscription license program. A few months ago Adobe introduced an entry level Acrobat subscription license called Classic, now renamed Acrobat Pro 2024, to help perpetual license customers move to subscription licenses. The cost of this new license is £38.99 + VAT per User, per Annum.

Acrobat Pro (full version) and Acrobat Pro 2024 comparison datasheet (Still called Classic on the datasheet).

Acrobat Pro 2024 – the new name for Acrobat Classic

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 09:00:00 +0200

On 8 April Adobe changed the name of the inexpensive Acrobat Classic to Acrobat Pro 2024. The product hasn’t changed. The per annum cost remains at £39.48 + VAT for education and charity Users. (When Acrobat Classic was launched is was over £80 + VAT per annum).

This relatively inexpensive 3 year Term License was introduced by Adobe to help customers with perpetual licenses of Acrobat Pro 2020 and Acrobat Pro 2017 transition to subscription licensing when Acrobat Pro goes end of life on 31 May (and end of support 30 November 2025).

If they choose to do so, new to Adobe subscription license customers can purchase the license for 3 years. Customers who already have Adobe subscription licenses can add Acrobat Pro 2024 to their existing Adobe account and the cost is pro-rated to the remainder of their Adobe year.

CorelDRAW 2025 release

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 12:00:00 +0200

🖌️ CorelDRAW Graphics Suite – 2025 release

The 2025 release of CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite introduces a range of updates aimed at improving performance, usability, and collaboration for creative professionals.

⚙️ Improved Performance
This version brings noticeable speed enhancements across the suite. Tasks like editing complex vector graphics or working with large image files are now more responsive, helping users maintain momentum during intensive design sessions.
🧠 Smarter Tools
Several AI-powered features have been refined or introduced, including tools for image enhancement and layout assistance. These are designed to reduce repetitive tasks and support more efficient workflows.
🌍 Collaboration Enhancements
The suite’s collaboration tools have been updated to support better sharing and feedback. Cloud-based workflows now allow for easier co-editing and commenting, which can be especially useful for teams working remotely or across different locations.
🛠️ Customisation and Compatibility

Adobe to further extend availability of Acrobat Pro 2020 and Std 2020 perpetual licenses

Fri, 8 Nov 2024 18:00:00 +0200

Just announced by Adobe is that they will further extend availability of Acrobat Pro & Std 2020 perpetual licenses, from their TLP license programme, to 31 May 2025.

The full details are:

Acrobat 2020 End of Sale has been extended from 30 November 2024 to 31 May 2025 for TLP licenses only. Acrobat 2020 End of Sale for CLP licenses is still 30 November 2024.
Acrobat 2020 End of Support has been extended from 1 June 2025 to 30 November 2025 for all Acrobat 2020 licenses, regardless of buying program.

Adobe TLP Acrobat Pro 2020 perpetual licenses are the ones we have supplied to many charity and education customers and cost £208.33+VAT per license.

Adobe stated that they want "to provide more time for customers … to purchase Acrobat 2020 products.”

Creative Cloud Acrobat licensing is NOT affected.

On 1 April this year we had broadcast the Adobe announcement that they were to stop supplying Acrobat perpetual licenses on 15 July 2024. Then, on the 6 Aug, Adobe announced they were reintroducing Acrobat Pro 2020 and Std 2020 perpetual licenses and they would remain available to purchase until 30 November 2024 and the end of support was to remain at 1 June 2025. Adobe commenting that this was "to...

MakeMusic announce end of Finale

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 10:00:00 +0200

MakeMusic, the producers of Finale, stopped supplying Finale on 26 August 2024. It is now not possible to purchase licenses of Finale. There is no news about another company taking up the product.

For existing owners of Finale MakeMusic has arranged with Steinberg for you to crossgrade to the latest version of Dorico Pro for $149.00. Please click here for further details from MakeMusic and the link to make a purchase. (As a comparison, the normal price of a new education/charity price single license of Dorico Pro from Entec is £252.99 + VAT).

If you were looking for Finale for music notation there are other applications Entec supply that you could consider:
• Avid Sibelius (please click here for details and costs from Entec)
• Steinberg Dorico (please click here for details and costs from Entec)

Adobe to reintroduce the supply of Acrobat Pro 2020 and Std 2020 perpetual licenses

Tue, 6 Aug 2024 13:00:00 +0200

6 August 2024

On 1 April this year we broadcast the Adobe announcement that they were to stop supplying Acrobat perpetual licenses on 15 July 2024. Creative Cloud Acrobat licensing was not affected.

Adobe have just announced they will reintroduce Acrobat Pro & Std 2020 perpetual licenses from both the TLP and CLP perpetual license programmes. Adobe announced that they want "to provide more time for customers like you to explore new offerings, such as subscription.”

Acrobat 2020 perpetual licenses will now be available until 30 November 2024. End of support for Acrobat Pro & Std 2020 remains the same at 1 June 2025.

If you have any questions p[lease contact the Entec Team on 01462 499599 or email orders@entec.co.uk.

Adobe to stop selling Acrobat Pro 2020 & Std 2020 perpetual licenses 15 July 2024

Mon, 1 Apr 2024 12:52:00 +0200

Not an April fool! On 1 April Adobe announced that they will discontinue the sale of these licenses through their Transactional License Program (TLP) and Cumulative Licensing Program (CLP). Subscription versions of Acrobat Pro & Std will continue to be available. End of support for Acrobat Pro & Std 2020 will be in June 2025.

End of support does not mean end of life. It means that Adobe will stop releasing security fixes. Your licenses will continue to operate until they become incompatible with changes in your operating system.

The last date for placing orders for Acrobat perpetual license products in TLP and CLP will be July 15, 2024.

There will not be a new version of Acrobat perpetual beyond Acrobat 2020. Customers wanting a desktop-only, non-subscription version of Acrobat will have the option to purchase a term license of Acrobat, called Acrobat Classic, starting on 15 July 2024. Entec will update you when Adobe release more information on this version.

Sage accounts for charities - handy survival guide

Fri, 4 Aug 2023 09:30:00 +0200

You or your organisation may already use one Sage’s accounting systems. Sage, a UK success story in the IT industry, produce the most widely used accounts applications in the UK and now offer systems for all sizes of organisations, from self employed up to corporate and are now in use around the globe.

Although their systems may look as though focussed on corporate users they already include built in functionality for not for profit organisations. If you are a charity you simply switch it on.

Entec, a long term Sage user, receives news emails from them. A recent one included a link to their Nonprofit Finance Team Survival Guide. A handy e-book providing overview of the specific requirements for charities. You can access this guide by clicking here. (This file is on Entec’s online shop site, you won’t be taken to Sage).

If you use Sage and need help that’s more focussed on your organisation’s accounting requirements than you can get from Sage help you are welcome to contact Entec. Belinda, one of the Entec Team, has providided Sage 50 consultancy and training to charities for many years. Sage 50 is applicable from small to medium sized organisations. (If you’ve an issue that you’d like resolved please us on 01462 499599 or email sales@entec.co.uk).

For all the news in the last few weeks please click here.

Free product training

Tue, 4 Jul 2023 15:57:00 +0200

Two of the most popular applications customers purchase from us are CorelDRAW Graphics Suite and MindManager. (Both, coincidentally, now part of the Alludo family and available as individual or volume licenses).

Both companies offer free online training sessions and webinars. For MindManager you don’t even need to be a customer to access the training.

If you aren’t familiar with MindManager, though have heard about mind mapping, it could be worth having a look at their Starter Academy materials to see what’s possible and how mind mapping is such a brilliant tool for organising and planning.

MindManager training – their Starter Academy – can be accessed by clicking here (opens a new page). Their "Meet the Experts” webinar sessions can be found by clicking here (opens a new page).

More about CorelDRAW Academy training – can be found by

E-signatures or e-signing

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 09:00:00 +0200

All types of customer are starting to use e-signing. In education it’s being led larger establishments (colleges more than schools) though in charities it doesn’t seem to relate to the size of the organisation, more to their need to handle sensitive or legal documents. Both are using it where they have documents relating to employment matters.

Some years ago Adobe included basic e-signing in Acrobat and, more recently, introduced Acrobat Sign as a separate and more comprehensive product. Last year they included large chunks of Acrobat Sign facilities within Acrobat Pro and announced the cost of Acrobat Pro to commercial customers would increase and this happened in June this year. Education and not for profit Acrobat Pro costs for have not increased.

As Acrobat is the dominant application for PDF editing the need for e-signatures has been met in part within the Acrobat customers already had, whether that be perpetual or subscription licenses. Those with subscription Acrobat Pro (Creative Cloud) do get more facilities.

The common e-signature features in both include:

Digitally sign, certify, and verify documents
Turn paper or Word files into fillable PDF forms
Fill, sign, and send locked forms fast from your computer with smart autofill

To see what e-signature facilities you get with the perpetual and subscription versions take a look at the Adobe Acrobat Pro and Acrobat Pro 2020 product comparison datasheet by clicking here.

If you need all the bells and whistles you can still add an Acrobat Sign license. To see what extras you get take a look at the Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Sign Solutions product...

More Headphones and Headsets!

Thu, 1 Jun 2023 09:00:00 +0200

Demand for headsets in education remains high and Andrea Communications have added three new models to their range specifically aimed at education and competitively priced. Their new AC-125 headphones (top picture) are £9.07 + VAT and might be compared with Avid’s AE-54 costing £11.00 + VAT and the £15.51 + VAT AC-155 USB headset (lower picture) could be viewed alongside Avid’s AE-55 USB costing £20.24 + VAT.

Formed in the early 1920s Andrea’s portfolio has changed over the years and included supplying the audio system used in NASA’s Mercury spacecraft flow in the 1960s.

You can have a look at the Andrea products range by clicking here (opens new window).

For all the news in the last few weeks please click here.

Photos, videos, etc. What's what from Adobe Stock

Mon, 15 May 2023 09:00:00 +0200

You need images, diagrams or videos for a newsletter, social media or website?

Although not the only resource for these Adobe Stock is one of the largest collections and you don't need to be an Adobe application user to access them. A number of enquries to us in the last few weeks prompted us to summarise your options.

There are two ways you can purchase Adobe Stock (beyond making a one off purchase with a credit card) and neither need you to already have an Adobe VIP agreememt:

Stock for teams – a quantity of assets per month. Unused assets in a month from the 10 and 40 assets per month plans can be rolled over to the following month and, if the subscription is renewed, rolled over to the following year. The 750 assets per month plan does not roll over at all, neither monthly nor to the following year.
Credit Pack for teams – a quantity of credits. (If you've got a VIP agreement they do not follow your VIP year). Credit Packs last 365 days from the date of purchase. Unused credits at the end of the 365 days are lost.

Adobe Stock and Credit Packs can be shared between all users in a team.

The type of credit you use to purchase stock assets governs your usage rights of the asset:

“I need to edit and create PDFs. What’s available?”

Fri, 5 May 2023 09:00:00 +0200

"I need to edit and create PDFs. What’s available?” is one of the most common questions we’re asked. If you just need to read PDFs the free Acrobat Reader is possibly the commonly used, though we’re finding the free PDF reader from the less well known Foxit starting to become more widely used in education and charities. For Acrobat Reader click here or for the Foxit Reader click here.

If you need to write and edit PDFs (beyond what’s available in Microsoft’s Office) you need a PDF editor. Once again Acrobat is often the first choice. However, Foxit’s PDF Editor and Editor Pro is rapidly gaining popularity in education and charities as it costs considerably less than Acrobat and you can have the latest version as either a perpetual OR a subscription license. (Foxit also offers some extra bells and whistles).

If you want to include e-signing facilities then Acrobat Pro DC includes these for education and charities (there are also some facilities in the perpetual Acrobat Pro 2020). Foxit offer a separate eSign license and include this within PDF Editor Pro+ (which is subscription only) although the cost of this is still a lot less than Adobe’s offering.

More and more software licenses are either subscription licenses or, if the manufacturer still offers them, perpetual licenses that include a year of updates and support. When you subscribe to an application most customers expect to receive any updates during theirsubscription period and you'll hear about these when the vendor emails you.

Perpetual licenses that automatically include updates and support are anewer phenomenon and feedback suggests customers aren’t necessarily aware they’ve got this. You should receive an email direct from the vendor, though, with the barrage of emails everyone gets or security blacklists, many don’t arrive or get read.

As an example Corel recently released CorelDRAW 2023 and if you purchased this software in the last year updates and support for a year will have been included and you can download the latest release for free and Corel emailed customers. As a precaution Entec also contacted customers to let them know they could download the latest version and received positoive feedback for this update.

If you’re not sure whether your license includes free updates please contact Entec on 01462 499599 or orders@entec.co.uk.

The latest version is based on end-user requests from customer interviews, survey data and the MindManager community and is for MindManager Windows and Cloud (Web, Chromebook, and Microsoft Teams). The release of the next MindManager Mac is scheduled for later in 2023.

Improvements include:

new templates,
improvements and refinements to co-editing,
new task management features (users can now import holidays from .csv and Excel files),
several usability improvements (including an all-new spell checker, dictionaries available for English, German, French, Spanish, and Japanese)

If you have a subscription license you can update at any time during your subscription and you should have heard from MindManager by email.

If you’ve an perpetual license and think the new version might be helpful, or you’re not sure what type of license you do have, please call us at Entec (01462 499599) or email us by

Adobe Express

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 09:00:00 +0200

Are you aware of Adobe Express? (It used to be called Adobe Spark). It’s a free online app that lets you easily create eye catching graphics for flyers, social media, logos and so on. You can use it on a smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop. You don’t need design skills to use it.

For schools there is a free Adobe Express for Education. (Functionality is similar to the paid-for commercial Express). A lot of our school customers use Express for Key Stage 1 & 2/3 (Age 5 to 11/14) and Creative Cloud for KS2/3 & 4 and KS5/Sixth form.

For more information on Adobe Express in education please click here (opens new window).

Windows on a Chromebook. Is that possible?

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 09:00:00 +0200

Yes it is! It's one of Parallels best kept secrets. (Parallels is owned by Corel although you will be starting to see the new holding organisation called Alludo).

You need a Chromebook with a minimum of 8GB of RAM, the Chrome Enterprise upgrade to your Google Admin console and a copy of Windows.

A common call for this is in schools and organisations who use Chromebooks and staff (or students) need to access Windows software and have to revert to another computer. A single license for education and charities is £39.99 + VAT and business and private customers £49.99 + VAT, (plus a copy of Windows).

For the Parallels e-book on how education customers can enable Parallels for Chromebook please click here.

For education/charity/not for profit purchases please

Headphones and Headsets

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 09:00:00 +0200

In case you were wondering "What's the difference?" headphones only have speakers and headsets have speakers and a microphone. Not that the the manufactuerers stick rigidly to this themselves!

Covid thrust us all into a world of online learning, Zoom and Teams meetings, online and blended teaching as well as quizzes! Users of Dragon dictation software also use headsets. The most popular ranges of headphones and headsets with our customers, particularly education and charities, are from Avid Products and Andrea.

Schools, particularly primary, tend to show a preference for the colourful Avid products and their AE-25 (pictured), although a little more expensive than some of their other models, is particularly popular as it was designed specifically for younger ears.

You can take a look at the Avid Products range by clicking here and the Andrea range by

Blog

🌟 Important Update for UK Charities: Microsoft 365 free licensing is changing

Adobe Express

Acrobat Pro 2024 – the new name for Acrobat Classic

CorelDRAW 2025 release

Adobe to further extend availability of Acrobat Pro 2020 and Std 2020 perpetual licenses

MakeMusic announce end of Finale

Adobe to reintroduce the supply of Acrobat Pro 2020 and Std 2020 perpetual licenses

Adobe to stop selling Acrobat Pro 2020 & Std 2020 perpetual licenses 15 July 2024

Sage accounts for charities - handy survival guide

Free product training

E-signatures or e-signing

More Headphones and Headsets!

Photos, videos, etc. What's what from Adobe Stock

“I need to edit and create PDFs. What’s available?”

Adobe Express

Windows on a Chromebook. Is that possible?

Headphones and Headsets