You’ll need a paid subscription to get document-editing capabilities an iPad Pro or newer 10.2-inch iPads.
In practice, this means Word, Excel, and PowerPoint offer a full experience for free on the iPad Mini and older 9.7-inch iPads.
On an iPad or Android tablet, these apps will only let you create and edit documents if you have a “device with a screen size smaller than 10.1 inches.” On a larger tablet, you can install these apps to view documents, but you’ll need a paid subscription to create and edit them. On an iPhone or Android phone, you can download the Office mobile apps to open, create, and edit documents for free. Microsoft’s Office apps are free on smartphones, too. Try the Mobile Apps on Phones and Small iPads Check with your educational institution-or at least look on its website-for more details. You’ll be offered a free download if it’s available to you through your school’s plan.Įven if a university or college doesn’t participate, it may offer Microsoft Office at a reduced cost to students and teachers through its bookstore.
To find out if your school participates, head to the Office 365 Education website, and enter your school email address.
Many educational institutions pay for Office 365 plans, allowing students and teachers to download the software for free. You might be able to take advantage of both offers for two months of free Microsoft Office access. Microsoft also offers free 30-day evaluations of Office 365 ProPlus, which is intended for businesses. They’ll each get access to the apps via their Microsoft account, and will have their own 1TB of storage for a combined 6TB of storage. You can share it with up to five other people. You’ll get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and 1TB of storage in OneDrive. This trial will give you full access to a Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) Home plan. You’ll also get access to the full versions of the apps on other platforms, including larger iPads. You can continue using Office for the rest of your free month after canceling.Īfter joining the trial, you can download full versions of these Microsoft Office applications for Windows PCs and Macs. However, you can cancel your subscription at any time-even right after signing up-to ensure you won’t get billed. You will have to provide a credit card to sign up for the trial, and it will automatically renew after the month. To find this offer, head to Microsoft’s Try Office for free website, and sign up for the trial. If you just need Microsoft Office for a short period of time, you can sign up for a one-month free trial. But they do offer surprisingly powerful Office applications, and they’re completely free. These applications aren’t quite as full featured as the classic Office desktop applications for Windows and Mac, and you can’t access them offline. Office’s web applications have some limitations. It will be uploaded to your Microsoft account’s free OneDrive storage, and you can open it in the associated application. You can also drag and drop a file from your computer onto the page. Click an application icon-like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint-to open the web version of that application. To access these free web apps, just head to and sign in with a free Microsoft account. You can open and create Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents right in your browser. The web-based versions of Office are simplified and won’t work offline, but they still offer a powerful editing experience.
Whether you’re using a Windows 10 PC, Mac, or Chromebook, you can use Microsoft Office for free in a web browser. To reactivate your Office applications, reconnect to the Internet.Use Office Online in a Browser It’s Free If you don’t connect to the Internet at least every 31 days, your applications will go into reduced functionality mode, which means that you can view or print your documents but cannot edit the documents or create new ones. You should also connect to the Internet regularly to keep your version of Office up to date and benefit from automatic upgrades.
Internet access is also required to access documents stored on OneDrive, unless you install the OneDrive desktop app. For Microsoft 365 plans, internet access is also needed to manage your subscription account, for example to install Office on other PCs or to change billing options. However, Internet access is required to install and activate all the latest releases of Office suites and all Microsoft 365 subscription plans. You don’t need to be connected to the Internet to use Office applications, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, because the applications are fully installed on your computer.