Microsoft Office is one of the most well-known and used software suites for managing and organizing information in electronic format in the world, which means that very likely sooner or later you will be faced with a document generated by Office. If you need to open, edit, or create an Office document, but don't intend to purchase the full suite of programs, there are several ways to go. For example, you can take advantage of the free trial period provided by Microsoft, which offers access to all the features of Office for a full month. Alternatively, you can take advantage of the Office Web Apps for free to create or edit documents directly online. On top of that, the Office mobile applications are available for free. Finally, there are also alternative software that can easily manage all formats of Office documents.
Steps
Method 1 of 4: Try Microsoft Office for free
Step 1. Try Office 365 free for one month
By downloading the demo version of the program, you can try this new version of Office for a whole month at no cost. Within the Microsoft suite, there are the 2016 versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and all the other software that are part of the Office package. Office 365 is the only version of Office that offers a free trial period.
To participate in the trial period, a valid credit card details must be provided, but no fee will be charged until the free month of use of the product expires. Canceling your registration before the end of the trial month will avoid Microsoft being charged any costs, while still ensuring that you can use the Office products for the duration of the trial period
Step 2. Log in to the Office website
You can download the demo version of Office 365 directly from its Microsoft website. To do this, go to the following URL products.office.com/try.
Step 3. Press the "One month free evaluation" button
This will start the registration process.
Step 4. Sign into your Microsoft account or create a new one
You will be asked to log into your Microsoft account. To do this, you can use an email address from Hotmail, Live.com, or Outlook.com. Alternatively, you can create a new account for free. The use of a Microsoft account is essential to be able to take advantage of the free trial period.
Step 5. Provide valid credit card details
To start the free trial period, you need to provide the details of a valid credit or debit card. You will not be charged initially, but if you do not cancel your Office 365 subscription by the end of the first month, you will be billed for the related monthly costs.
Step 6. Download the Office 365 installation file
Once you've created your account and provided your credit card information, you'll have access to the link to download the Office 365 installation file. The file itself is very small, so the download should only take a few moments.
Step 7. Once the download is complete, run the file
The installation wizard will start and download the necessary Office files. Before the download begins, you may need to log back into your Microsoft account.
- During the installation phase, you will be given the opportunity to choose which products from the Office package to install. By deselecting any products you don't intend to use, you can reduce installation time and save valuable disk space. You can still install them later if you need to.
- The installation process takes a considerable amount of time, especially in the case of a slow internet connection.
Step 8. Start the Office programs you want to use
Once the installation is complete, all new software will be available within the Windows "Start" menu. Now you can take advantage of all the features of Office for the full month of trial.
Method 2 of 4: Use the Office Web Apps
Step 1. Log in to the Microsoft Office website
Microsoft offers free access to the web applications of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Office programs. These versions are not as powerful and versatile as their desktop counterpart, but they are still able to meet your needs completely for free and without forcing you to install any software. Go to the office.com website to see the complete list of available applications.
Step 2. Select the Office program you want to use
You can view the list of all available applications by scrolling down the web page that appeared. At this point, simply select the button for the tool you want to use.
Step 3. Log into your Microsoft account
In order to use the Office web applications, you need to log in to your personal Microsoft account or use a company or school-provided account. After logging in, you can start using the selected program. If you don't have a Microsoft account, you can create one for free. This will give you 5 GB of free OneDrive storage space, where you can store your documents to access them from any computer or mobile device.
Step 4. Use your chosen program
The appearance of the web interface of these applications is almost identical to that of the desktop version. Use the tabbed menu at the top of the page to access the features made available by the program. Most likely, you will notice the absence or limitations of some functions. In order to take full advantage of the full potential of the Office suite, it is mandatory to install the desktop version. Check out this page of the Microsoft website for a full account of all the differences between the web and desktop versions of Word.
Step 5. Save your document
Office web applications do not provide auto-save of documents, so you will have to do it manually at regular intervals. You can save a document by going to the "File" tab and choosing the "Save as" menu item.
- The saved document will be stored within the OneDrive storage space linked to your account.
- Through the "Save as" option you can also choose to download your document to your computer. You can decide to use different file formats, including "PDF" format and open formats.
Step 6. Upload your documents to your OneDrive account
This way you can manage them through the Office web applications. If you have received from someone a document created with one of the Office suite programs, you can consult its content using the Office Web Apps after uploading it to your OneDrive profile.
- Use your browser to access onedrive.live.com. If you are using a mobile device, you can decide to use the OneDrive app built for these platforms.
- To upload the document to OneDrive, drag the related file into the browser window. Uploading small documents should only take a few moments. Conversely, large PowerPoint presentations may take longer.
- From the OneDrive interface, select the icon of the document you want to open to launch its web application. In this way you will have the possibility to consult its contents and make the desired changes (in case the document is not protected).
Method 3 of 4: Use the Office Mobile Apps
Step 1. Download the Office applications for iOS or Android devices
Microsoft provides a free version of all applications belonging to the Office package for Android and iOS platforms. You can download these programs directly from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. The free versions of such apps have all the basic functionality for creating and editing documents. If you've subscribed to Office 365, you can use it to access additional advanced features.
Step 2. Authorize Office applications to access your device's internal storage
On first launch, these apps may ask for permission to access the internal memory of your smartphone or tablet. Authorize this operation so you can save and open your files quickly and easily.
Step 3. To connect to your OneDrive profile, sign in to your Microsoft account
The first time you launch the application, you will be asked to log in to your Microsoft account. While you can skip this step, signing in or creating a free OneDrive account gives you 5GB of totally free online storage that you can use to store your Office documents and sync them across all your devices.
Step 4. Press the "Open" button to open your documents
You can choose to upload files that are present in your device's internal memory or stored on Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or any other online storage service. Office applications for iOS and Android platforms support all popular document formats (for example the Word app can open DOC, DOCX and TXT files).
Step 5. To create a new document, press the "New" button
At the top of the new page that appeared, there is a menu that allows you to choose where to create the new file. If you're signed in to your Microsoft account, your personal folder on OneDrive will be selected by default. You will also have the option to save it to your device's internal memory.
Step 6. Use the buttons at the top of the screen to access the formatting tools
Select the icon characterized by a pencil superimposed on the letter "A" to display the panel related to the formatting tools. From here you can choose to use the basic tools, also available on the Office menu tabs, to make changes to the file and format it. Press the "Home" button to view all the menu tabs present. To view the available options, scroll the list in the displayed panel: up or down.
When the keyboard is visible on the screen, you can swipe the toolbar displayed at the top to the right or left for quick access to the formatting tools
Step 7. Press the "Save" button to save the changes
All your documents will be automatically saved at regular intervals, but if you wish you can save them manually by pressing the "Save" button. Alternatively you can also press the "Menu" button in the upper left corner of the screen and choose the "Save" option.
Method 4 of 4: Use Alternate Programs
Step 1. Check the availability of alternative desktop programs to Office
There are several software with these features, which offer most of the functions available in the Office suite and even some that the latter does not have. These programs are all capable of opening and editing documents created using Microsoft Office, including several open formats. The best known and most used software are FreeOffice, OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
FreeOffice is considered the most intuitive and easy to use program, while OpenOffice and LibreOffice are more powerful and complete. If you are already familiar with Microsoft Office, consider using FreeOffice or LibreOffice
Step 2. Download the desired software
After making your choice, you can proceed to download the installation file of the desired program. To do this, go to their respective websites:
- LibreOffice: libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/.
- FreeOffice: freeoffice.com/en/download.
- OpenOffice: openoffice.org/download/index.html.
Step 3. Run the installation file
You will have the possibility to choose which programs, included in the suite, to install. By choosing only the ones you plan to use, you can reduce installation time and save valuable disk space.
Step 4. Get familiar with the new program interface
The three software described differ from each other in appearance and operation, but they are all complete programs. Precisely for this reason, to learn how to fully use the potential offered, you will have to face an initial learning period, especially if you are used to using the programs of the Microsoft Office package. Learning the basic features should be simple and intuitive, while to learn how to take advantage of the advanced features you can rely on online tutorials on YouTube or directly here on wikiHow.
- Search online or on the wikiHow pages for more details on how to use Writer: OpenOffice's alternative to Microsoft Word.
- Search online or on the wikiHow pages for more details on how to use the text editor included in the LibreOffice package.
Step 5. Consider choosing a cloud-based alternative to Office
With the advancement of technological progress, online tools are becoming more and more powerful, resulting in the possibility of installing less and less software on your computer. In addition to the Office Web Apps described earlier in this article, there are numerous other online solutions based on clouding services, which are a valid alternative to Office. All these services allow you to upload documents created with Microsoft Office to your profile and edit them at will.
- Google Docs (or Google Docs) is the best known and most used option. This free service offered by Google allows you to edit text documents, spreadsheets and presentations, directly online, using the tools offered. You can access these tools directly from Google Drive - the place where your files are stored. If you have a Gmail account, you also have access to Google Docs. See this article for more details on how to create and edit your documents with Google Drive.
- Zoho is another online clouding service that can be used as an alternative to Office. Its graphical interface is much more similar to that of Microsoft Office than that of Google Docs and, just like the latter, it offers the ability to create and edit text documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Search online for more details on how to harness the power of Zoho.
- OnlyOffice is also a great online alternative to Microsoft Office, which offers the ability to create text documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
