Microsoft Office for FREE

[Fizz]

This is news to me.
You have to be online much like Google Docs.
You use it within the browser but it can create a shortcut to a more finished looking app.

They explain it better than I can here....

Office

[Keaton_Bennett]

It works for me.

[jodeb720]

As an IT Professional, I can tell you there's a lot of power in the Microsoft Office Suite of apps.

When Microsoft had a "use it at home" offer for large companies (you can install it for free at home, so long as you didn't run it in both locations at the same time) it was a deal. it was a 10 dollar admin fee and you downloaded and had a full copy of office at home.

But as with all things designed to suck money out of our wallet, all the major software vendors (including Microsoft) now "rent" software for an annual fee.

Just about the same time this "renting" of software came about, I looked at Libre Office - which was eventually purchased by Oracle - and then moved to Open Office.

Open office has the look and feel of Office 2003 - 2010 range. It's got the cute little icons, but for some of us, the Menu navigation is also still there.

It can export the files in Microsoft Office format so you can exchange files with folks who still have MS Office without reformatting the file(s).

I run it on my Mac, Windows and Linux boxes and it's seamless between each Operating System.

Oh - one more thing. As I write this note, I'm using a 12 year old Macbook - which has Open Office on it. I've got a 3 year old Raspberry Pi (linux based) which I run it on, and my primary workstation is a Windows 10 i5 based box. DW has a 4 year old Dell Laptop with 24gb of RAM, i5, and a 256GB SSD - all of which run Open office. And she also has a 12 year old Macbook - she has never complained about switching interfaces using Open Office at home and MS Office at work.

Just my two cents.

[Edd505]

Why worry, Open Office, free to everyone and does all MS office does.
Open Office Free

[joebedford]

Work?

[Gdetrailer]

Fizz wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:
Free?

Sort of, if you don't mind being the "product" as part of the free data slurping that will happen..

And yet here you are a 'product' on one of the largest 'data slurping' forums on the Internet.

Forums?

Yeah, not so much "data slurping" as the forum it's self goes blind if I remove the "cookie" from the browser and even with the forum cookie it isn't reading all of my files on my PC. The forum is only getting the information I post and just minor tracking (I control what the forum gets).

Forum does not slurp through my personal files 24/7 like photos and documents placed in the cloud either.

Once you put your photos and documents out in the "cloud" you give up all control of that data and it now becomes public domain in spite of what you may think. It is why companies are so willing to offer "free" things like free online data storage, free programs and utilities, free "APs".

If you don't mind becoming more of the "product" and less of an individual then 100% free online stuff is for you.

There is a cost associated with free so in reality is is not free.

But back on subject, the web browser version of MS Office might work for some as long as they can work within the limitations.

There is other ways to get full fledged 100% real MS Office at a substantially reduced cost. If you are working for a company that has qualified MS Products and are paying for support on those qualified products that company may qualify to be in the HUP or Home Users Program.

HUP program has substantially reduced cost licenses for MS Office products..

Yrs ago I bought full MS Office 2016 for $15..

I believe MS Office 2019 was offered for $20 through the HUP program..

Takes some digging to find the full download version on HUP as MS has buried it to sell Office 365 as their flagship product.

The caveat with HUP is the license is technically only good while you continue to work for that company. Leave the company, you are not legally licensed to use those HUP products any more..

Additionally, if you are a "student" (which can be grade school through college) you can buy the "student version" at a reduced cost. The student version is missing database and perhaps a few other things but not as crippled as the web browser version.

[joebedford]

Yeah, it looks like it's a phone thing. No use to me.

I use Open Office on my PC and Google Docs when I'm collaborating online. I have a full installation of MS Office but I don't use it.

[NamMedevac_70]

It would not download to my laptop but implied I could only use it with an app which I guess means mobile smartphone. I don't really need it but wanted to check it out for future use and yes I logged into my MS account. Cheers

[fj12ryder]

Fizz wrote:
Did you actually read and follow the link??
It includes word, excel, power point, outlook and a few others, all in one tidy bundle.

Not for everybody but it's there.

Yes, I did follow the link and read the article, and it said: "How to download and use Microsoft Word for free". I saw nothing in the link/article about MS Office. Maybe you put in the wrong link?

On Edit: I did miss that one sentence: "Office Online offers more than just Microsoft Word, too, with Excel, Powerpoint, and much more also available for free." Oops.

[Fizz]

Gdetrailer wrote:
Free?

Sort of, if you don't mind being the "product" as part of the free data slurping that will happen..

And yet here you are a 'product' on one of the largest 'data slurping' forums on the Internet.

[Gdetrailer]

Free?

Sort of, if you don't mind being the "product" as part of the free data slurping that will happen..

Per link above..

"All you need is a Microsoft account and a data connection. Head to ‘the official Office website in your browser of choice, enter your login credentials and choose ‘Microsoft Word’. Office Online offers more than just Microsoft Word, too, with Excel, Powerpoint, and much more also available for free.

Using Microsoft Word online is a lot like Google Docs, in that you have automatic cloud backups of your work with OneDrive. You also have the ability to collaborate with other people in real-time. This isn’t the full version of Microsoft Word, but it looks the same and has all the basic suite of features that the majority of people will need access to."

There may be other silly limitations like making saving a document to your own device a real pain.

If you want full featured Office with zero limitations this is not one of those things.

Can't find 2019 online version limitations but as of 2017 there was way to many limitations to MS word that reduced it to functionality between Notepad and Wordpad and those Web versions required your documents to be online only in order to edit them.. My DD has used it but those limitations can be extremely frustrating at times.

HEREis a list of known limitations from 2017..

I would suggest trying to research exactly what limitations exist before putting all the eggs in the web browser free version..

You can also use older versions of MS Office even on Win10, I have Office 2000 with compatibility pack (allows open and save in newer "docx" format) installed and running perfectly fine on Win10.. If you have a legit copy of newer versions you can install them on Win10.

[Fizz]

Did you actually read and follow the link??
It includes word, excel, power point, outlook and a few others, all in one tidy bundle.

Not for everybody but it's there.

[fj12ryder]

Not to put too fine a note on that, it is Microsoft Word, and not Microsoft Office. I use Open Office, but it looks like that would work for most word processing.