Browsing Office 365 plans?

Don’t get out your credit card just yet. There are some options you should try first.

I know, the prospect of a free Office 365 download sounds kind of farfetched. But it’s not. If there is a legal way that you don’t have to pay, you’ll find it here.

The modern SharePoint Admin Center introduces the ability to rename the URLs for SharePoint site names. This responds to a longstanding customer request and makes it possible for site names to reflect what users see elsewhere in Office 365 groups or Teams. It’s a small but welcome change in the fi. Microsoft 365 is a collection of apps but it’s not the same Office suite that Microsoft sold a few years ago. The current Microsoft 365 has lots of different online services and features integrated into it. It’s gone from simple desktop file editing to a collaborative tool that can create and edit files, and share them. Microsoft 365 admin.

Of course, one way is to simply get the free trial of Office 365 if you don’t have it already. This is limited but will give you a chance to try it before you buy.

On to the ways to get a full free Office 365.

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2. Become a Teams or SharePoint Champion with this course: single Microsoft productivity tool available in Microsoft 365 plans.
3. Microsoft 365 has all the familiar Office apps and more in one place. Work, learn, collaborate, connect, and create with Microsoft 365.

1. Get Office 365 through your school

Microsoft offers Office 365 Education for free through many schools and universities. If you are a student or educator, and your institution is eligible, all you need is a valid school email address.

T-mobile Office 365

This is a truly free version of Office 365, and you should enjoy this benefit for as long as possible. In addition to your familiar MS apps, it comes with tools to encourage collaboration in the classroom, like Access, Sway, Teams, SharePoint, Stream, and Flow.

Every so often, Office will verify you are still are still an active educator or student. Once your Office 365 Education plan expires, applications will become view-only after 30 days. After 60, you will lose access. To keep working, you will need to subscribe to Office 365, or back up your files and use Office Online.

If you used to be a student, see if your school address will work. If not, access the alumni discount they offer for Office 365 Personal.

2. Get the free trial of Office 365

This is the easiest free option for accessing premium versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, and Access. But it only lasts for a month. After that, you’ll have to begin a subscription or use one of the other methods here.

365 Online Email

Note: You will have to provide payment information to sign up for the free trial, though you won’t be charged until the trial expires. When it does, you will start getting billed automatically.

Remember to turn off recurring billing in your Account Settings unless you want to start paying.

Unlike the online version, when Office 365 is installed locally you have full document editing capabilities offline. You can share the free Office 365 trial version with up to five other people. Each person gets 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage, plus the ability to sync and share files across Windows, Apple, and Android devices.

This is a great option, but only for the short-term. You only get a single free trial per email and credit card, so unless you try to bend the terms of the license agreement, it’s a one-shot deal. Or is it?

3. Get the free trial of Office 365 ProPlus

Microsoft provides evaluation versions of its products to potential customers through its Evaluation Center. There you can test-drive the latest features and services the company offers, including Office 365 ProPlus. First, you’ll need to register an Office 365 ProPlus account and qualify for an evaluation account.

Note: Same as the trial version of Office 365, the ProPlus trial requires payment information and bills you after a month.

Once you have access to the full evaluation version of Office 365 ProPlus, you can share and manage up to 25 users. It comes with all of the premium Office tools, not just web apps, and Skype for Business. Streaming installation for up to five computers per user allows everyone to work offline with full editing capabilities.

Since it is an evaluation version, Microsoft is still working out the kinks of this software. Things may not work perfectly, so be prepared.

This is Microsoft’s way of hooking enterprise customers, and it is a sleek toolkit for any company. But if you are not looking to pay once the trial is up, you will have to back up and switch to something else.

Tip: G Suite Business isn’t free, but its pricing is competitive and the functionality works well for agile companies.

4. Convince your company to get Office 365

If your need for Office 365 is strictly personal, this may be a tough sell. But if you constantly find yourself in need of full-versions of Word or Excel, you probably have a strong case to make to your employer.

Office Online is great, considering it’s free, but the lack of function or offline capability can be extremely frustrating. If these things are getting in the way and costing you time, it’s likely costing the company more money a subscription would.

This isn’t always going to work—especially if you are your own boss, sorry freelancers—but I told you we were looking at every option to get Office 365 free of charge.

5. Free Office 365 (with purchase of a PC)

Here’s an option that is not going to be right for everyone, but if you are in the market for a new computer, this could be an answer. Some PCs come with one year of Office 365. This sometimes includes ultra-affordable laptops, and you still save $99 annually on an Office 365 subscription.

One thing to make sure of is that you are getting what you want. Some computers will only come with Office 365 Personal, and others may not even have an OS installed. Read the fine print and confirm everything is set up as you expect.

What about Office Online and Mobile?

Now you know how to get a free download of Office 365, but I should mention two easy, free-forever Office options just in case they do the trick.

Get Office Online

Office Online is entirely cloud-based and works on most browsers. As long as you have the internet, you have access to familiar MS Office tools like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as Sway, OneNote, Outlook, Calendar, OneDrive, Forms, People, and Skype. Simply create an account and log in from anywhere to collaborate with anyone.

While Office Online doesn’t take up any space, the downside is that you need the internet in order to use the programs and your documents. If you can rely on wifi wherever you need it, this limitation isn’t so bad. Plus, you can always sync your computer with OneDrive so that files are automatically stored for offline access.

The features are greatly limited compared to Office 365, but for personal use, it’s probably okay as long as you plan ahead. The extra logistics required to coordinate larger teams using Office Online, however, probably don’t end up saving much money.

Get the Office mobile app

The Office mobile app works on Android and iOS on your phone or tablet. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are combined into a single app that syncs with all of your devices that use Office.

You can download additional apps, which take up some space, but all of your documents are stored in the cloud. You’ll be able to create and sign PDFs, and edit documents, tables, and slides—but be aware that the editing features are limited without the Office 365 subscription.

Similar to Office Online, the mobile app is okay for personal needs but quickly reveals itself wanting at the enterprise level.

Note: Editing in the Office mobile app is limited to screens up to 10.1 inches. If you have a larger screen, you will have to upgrade to Office 365 or be stuck in read-only.

Dubious methods and hacking

T Online 365 App

Finally, I want to point out that similar to giving Microsoft multiple credit cards or emails in an attempt to prolong your free trial of Office 365, there are other dubious methods out there. These are not always safe for you and may be illegal.

I mention them because your search has no doubt included these options, and many are disguised as genuine with a price that is too good to be true.

For example, you will find people offering Office 365 for $1 on eBay and other sites. This will get you a product key that maybe works, and definitely isn’t legal. Typically, you can use these accounts for one year, or until Microsoft detects that your key is not legitimate.

There are also videos and blogs that show you how to hack Office 365 by emulating a successful KMS activation. These authors claim that the KMS license key is legal, which may be true, depending on how the code is written. But installing the key to access licenses you never bought is certainly not legal.

Plus, whatever patch you copy into your system may have other functions you don’t want. A hacker wrote it after all. For us, we don’t consider it worth the risk.

This goes, too, for any free Office 365 you discover on torrents and other sites that get shut down periodically. With an illegal free version of Office 365 you may get more than you pay for in the worst way.

Final note: If you have to pay… it’s really not that bad!

In the end, Office 365 is an extremely valuable set of programs. Getting it for $99/year is pretty amazing.

I understand why it’s annoying, especially in the eleventh hour when your documents are out of reach. Trust me, I get it. But I also understand that the software of this century requires ongoing maintenance for security and integration. The game has changed and it’s not necessarily evil for companies to move to a subscription model.

Of course there are people who will disagree with me.

LibreOffice is a free fully-loaded office suite. Over 200 million people use the open-source program, which supports more than 200 file types. It’s got Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, and a number of other applications that are recognizable to any user of Word, etc.

There are Google’s free offerings as well, which solve most personal needs for document creation, sharing, and storage. For enterprise needs, though, G Suite for Business is reasonably priced and has a higher user satisfaction score than Office 365.

Use the trials to figure out where you stand. If Office 365 is what you need, budget it in and write it off next year. Here’s a guide to help you make sense of the Office 365 pricing.

If you're staying at home for the foreseeable future due to the coronavirus pandemic, you might be in need of some basic tools on your personal or work computer, like Microsoft 365. Formerly known as Office 365, Microsoft 365 is a service that debuted in April that adds more features to the office software. But if you don't want to shell out the cash, there are a few ways you can get the service and its apps for free.

Microsoft's suite of productivity software -- including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Microsoft Teams , OneDrive and SharePoint -- typically costs $150 for a one-time installation (as Office 365), or between $70 and $100 every year for subscription service access across devices and family members (as Microsoft 365). Microsoft also recently said it would release a new standalone version of Microsoft Office for both Windows and Mac -- no subscription required -- at some point in 2021.

Use the browser-based version of the Microsoft Word app for free.

Read more:How to download Windows 10 for free, now that Windows 7 is dead

Office 365 Online Login

Here are the versions of Office 365, Microsoft 365 and their apps that you can find online for free right now.

For students and teachers

If you're a student, teacher or faculty member with a school email address, you are likely eligible to get access to Office 365 for free through Microsoft -- including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Microsoft Teams and additional classroom tools.

All you have to do is enter your school email address on this page on Microsoft's website: Get started with Office 365 for free. In many cases, you'll be instantly granted access thanks to an automated verification process. If you attend an institution that needs to be verified, it might take up to a month to confirm your eligibility.

Read more: Coronavirus closed schools. Here are online education classes for every age and grade

Recent graduates who want to stick with Office 365 can also get Office 365 Personal for $12 for 12 months, with a valid school email address.

For everyone else

Anyone can get a one-month free trial of Microsoft 365 to try it out. However, it does require you to enter a credit card, and if you don't cancel before the month is up, you'll be charged $100 for a one-year subscription to Microsoft 365 Family (formerly called Office 365 Home).

The good news is, if you don't need the full suite of Microsoft 365 tools, you can access a number of its apps online for free -- including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Calendar and Skype . Here's how to get them:

365 Online Banking

• Go to Office.com.
• Login to your Microsoft account (or create one for free). If you already have a Windows, Skype or Xbox login, you have an active Microsoft account.
• Select the app you want to use, and save your work in the cloud with OneDrive.

Read more at TechRepublic:Microsoft 365: A cheat sheet

So what's the catch for the free version?

You may be saying, wait a minute -- if I can get all of those apps for free, why pay for Microsoft 365 in the first place? The reason is that the functionality of these apps is limited: They only run through your web browser, and you can't use them if you aren't online. There are also fewer features than the full Microsoft 365 versions.

However, there are still a number of benefits, including the ability to share links to your work and collaborate in real time, similar to G Suite tools. If you're looking for basic versions of each of these apps, the free version should work well for you.

Read more: Windows 10 hacks: 11 hidden tricks to master after you upgrade