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If you need the Microsoft Office suite of apps for your business, school, or personal life
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the cost can be very expensive with plans starting at around $70 per year
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Thankfully, there are ways to use their most popular apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
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at zero cost to you. So in this video, I'll show you all the ways you can use Microsoft Office for free
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coming up next on Techcombo. The first of six ways is to use Office on the Web, which is now the official name
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Some of you might remember it used to be called Office Online. It's 100% completely free and can be used in your favorite web browser
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You will need a Microsoft account. If you don't have one, click on Sign Up for Free
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It's easy to get set up. Included with Office on the Web is Microsoft Word
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For working with spreadsheets, there's Excel. And for presentations, there is PowerPoint
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Also included is OneNote, Outlook, Sway, which is their Canva alternative, and a few others
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When you open Office on the Web, you'll see the most popular web apps along the left
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Clicking on apps will show you the others available. When you select Word, Excel, or PowerPoint
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you see the templates or themes here along the top along with a link to get additional themes or templates Or to start from scratch using Word as an example you can select New Blank Document
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The web apps for Office only offer the basic features when compared to the desktop version
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but for most people that won't be a problem. At the top you'll see the familiar ribbon to edit
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your document. I do want to point something out. When you go to File here in the upper left
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and select Save As. This will save your document online to Microsoft's cloud storage service, OneDrive
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If you prefer to save it to your computer, select Download a Copy
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Here's what Microsoft Excel looks like on the web. And here's PowerPoint with the templates here on the right
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The Office on the Web apps, because they are browser-based, can be used with any operating system
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including Windows, Mac, Linux, and can even be used on Chromebooks. We'll now go through the remaining five of these more quickly
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If you're a student or teacher, you may be able to get Office 365 Education for free
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To find out if you're eligible, enter your school email address and click Get Started
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to go through the registration process. The great thing is, this is not a trial
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You'll get access to the entire Office suite, including Microsoft Teams, with all the features
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included as long as you enrolled at a qualified grade school college or university Not every school participates If you do know that your school is enrolled with Office 365 Education and you get denied access
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contact your institution's IT department to allow access. If you have an iOS or Android device
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you can get Microsoft Office for free to view, create, and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents all in one app
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There is a catch. On devices with a screen size larger than 10.1 inches
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You can install Office to view documents, but you will need a paid account to edit and create them
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You can download Microsoft Office for Android from the Google Play Store. And if you have an iPhone or iPad, it's available from the Apple App Store
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Another way to get Microsoft Office for free is to find a friend, roommate, or family member with a Microsoft 365 family plan
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which allows for up to six users, and ask them nicely to add yourself to their account
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You'll be able to get full access to all the apps on any device with OneDrive storage up to 1TB
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To do this, the owner will need to add you on the Microsoft account sharing webpage, and then you'll receive an invitation link
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If you're in the market for a new computer, you can sometimes get one year of Microsoft Office 365 Personal included for free
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It not much but at least you saving around I mostly seen these deals with new laptops so I put a few we recommend in the description with various price points If you someone that only needs temporary access to the
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fully featured version of Microsoft Office, or you just want to kick the tires before buying an
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annual plan, you can get a one-month trial of Microsoft 365 Family for free. To sign up for
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the trial, you'll need to enter your credit card information. If you don't want to use it after the
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trial, make sure you cancel. Otherwise, it will automatically renew after the trial ends at around
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$100 per year. In addition, Microsoft also offers Microsoft 365 for business with a one-month free
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trial. Taking advantage of both offers could net you two months of Microsoft Office for free
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Just like the other trial offer, cancel before the trial ends to avoid getting charged
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If none of those methods work for you, or you just want to get out of Microsoft's ecosystem
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We released a video a few months back with free alternatives to Microsoft Office that
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might work better for you. The link to that video will be in the description
