There is no need to look for dubious methods to get the famous Microsoft Office applications for free. There is indeed a completely legal way to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint without spending a cent.
Despite the years and the profound developments in computing, Microsoft’s Office suite remains one of the most popular and widely used products in the world. Its three flagship applications, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, remain essential tools in the professional sphere and can also provide many services in a personal setting.
But these software programs are not free and their cost can quickly become prohibitive for simple or occasional use. To purchase an individual license, you will have to pay nearly €150, which you will have to pay more for each new major version of the product. And for the subscription formula called Microsoft 365, it will cost around ten euros per month. However, there is a completely legal and surprisingly little-known way to use the famous Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications for free, as well as other Microsoft Office products, such as Forms or Lists.
Indeed, in response to changes in usage and the rise of competing office applications such as Google Docs and Sheets, Microsoft has made online versions of some of its Office suite software available for free. This means that it is perfectly possible to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint in your favorite Internet browser without spending a penny. To take advantage of this, you simply need to have a Microsoft account, which can be created quickly and for free on a dedicated space on the Microsoft website and which most Windows users already have. To access the applications, simply go to the Office Online page and log in using your Microsoft credentials. Once this is done, you will then be taken to a dashboard that allows you to launch and use Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications within your web browser.
The online versions of the software are very similar to their desktop counterparts. They feature the familiar interface of the Office suite, with the ribbon bringing together the various tools available in the form of tabs, so you won’t get lost and will quickly find your bearings if you are used to working on the desktop versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Note, however, that some functions are not available in the online version of the applications: in Word, it is not possible to perform a mail merge or add a watermark to the document, Excel does not allow you to create custom cell styles or add calculated fields in pivot tables, and PowerPoint does not offer as many transition effects as its classic version, for example.
However, these restrictions only concern some of the most complex functions, and the range of tools available largely meets the vast majority of office needs, whether for writing documents with elaborate formatting, analyzing large data sets or creating sophisticated presentations. In addition, two lesser-known applications from the Office suite are also available for free, Forms and Lists, which as their names indicate allow you to create interactive forms and lists. Finally, note that to use these applications in your browser, your documents must be stored online on Microsoft’s OneDrive service, for which you have 5 GB of space in the free plan, which is more than enough to store a large number of office files.