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Get Microsoft Office for Free: Use Word, Excel and PowerPoint without Paying

Many have stayed away from Microsoft Office because of the payment involved. They have resorted to free solutions like G suite which offers them Docs, Sheets, and Slides without any cost.

But then not many know that you can get Microsoft Office for free, legally through Microsoft, of course.

Here are ways you can get Microsoft Office for free.

Get Office 365 Education

With Office 365 Education you get for free such programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. On top of that, classroom tools are thrown in.

The free plan is open to teachers and students.

Requirements

To qualify as a student, you’ll need to satisfy the following requirements:

In order to get Office 365 Education you must:

  • You must be a student (full-time or part-time) at a registered university, college or school. MIcrosoft will determine whether you school or collge is qualified fior the Office Education Plan
  • You must use your school email address – johndoe@collegename.edu. The .edu domain extension is important
  • You must be 13 years of age and above
  • You must be connected to te Intenet to use the service

To sign up head to the Office 365 Education page.

Application Process

On entering your school email address, Microsoft will email you instructions on how to claim your free subscription if your school qualifies.

If your college isn’t qualified, you’ll be notified as well, instantly.

Office 365 Education allows you to use Microsoft Office across 5 Windows or Mac computers.

Mobile Office Apps

Also, you’re given access to Office apps for Android, Windows, and iOS mobile devices.

Storage Space, Online and Offline Access

Add to that a 1TB free cloud storage space via OneDrive. As a qualified Office 365 Education user, you’ll be entitled to a free download of Office.

So, with an Office 365 Education account, you get to use the full version of Microsoft Office online and offline.

If you’re a non-profit organization, you may qualify, too.

Free Microsoft for non-Teachers and non-Students

What if you’re not a student or teacher? Can you access Microsoft Office for free? Yes, you can.

Free Trial

You can try Microsoft Office Free for One Month.

There’s a catch here though. To sign up for the free trial, you would need to provide your credit card details.

Cancel in Time

After the free trial expires, you’ll need to pay. Your credit card will be charged $100 for a one-year subscription if you don’t cancel in time.

The paid subscription will give access to 6 people. Each will be given 1TB of storage space.

To sign up for the free trial, you would need a Microsoft account. You can create one for free.

Completely Free Office 365

You can get Microsoft Office for free, with no strings attached. You can enjoy Office 365 as long as Microsoft makes this free version available.

It would suit you if you just want to use the basic features of a few Microsoft Office programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

If you already have a Microsoft account, you can head straight to office.com and log in to your account to start using Office 365 for free.

So, what’s the catch here? You won’t get the full version as is available to paid Office 365 users.

Limitations

Firstly, you can’t download a desktop version. You would have to work entirely online. You’ve always to be connected to the Internet to access your documents.

Secondly, not all Office apps are supported. This shouldn’t be a concern. The popular ones like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote are included.

Thirdly, not all the features are included. In Word, for example, you’ll find SmartArt and charts missing. Also, the Design and Mailing Tab is unavailable.

Excel, however, supports more features, including drawing. There are over 400 functions included.

PowerPoint, too, has very little lacking. Among the ‘premium’ features it supports include Shapes and SmartArt.

The decision to limit features in Word is because it’s more popular than others. The marketing strategy is to give just enough to make users sign up for a paid subscription.

Goodies

Despite the limitations, you can still benefit from this free Office version. If you’re using Word, you can create basic documents, download copies and even convert them to PDF.

The insert feature is also impressive. You can insert hyperlinks, tables and drawings, among others. Text boxes, too.

With the free version, you can also create a shortcut on your desktop for easy access to your documents.

You’ve learned how you can get free Microsoft Office. Now you can go ahead and choose the best option for you.

The best option is if you’re a student and teacher. You’ll get to enjoy Office 365 full features and work online and offline with the suite.

Write Station Tech