© Provided by CNET Josh Miller/CNET
- Is There An App For Office 365
- Is There An Office 365 App For Iphone
- All Microsoft Office 365 Apps
- Is There An App For Office 365
- Apps Included With Office 365
Chances are you've been spending more time on your work or personal computer this year due to the pandemic, so you might be in need of some basic tools like Microsoft 365. Formerly known as Office 365, Microsoft 365 is a service that adds more features to the traditional office software. But if you don't want to shell out the money, there are a few ways you can get the service and its popular apps for free.
Formerly known as Office 365, Microsoft 365 is a service that debuted last year that adds more features to the office software. But if you don't want to shell out the cash, there are a few ways. The app works with any Office 365 subscription, Office 2019, Office 2016, and Office Online – the free web-based version of Office for consumers. Go try out and explore the Office app to see how you can use it to make you even more productive with Office.
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 is also planning to release a new standalone version of Microsoft Office for both Windows and Mac -- for a flat price, no subscription required -- at some point later this year.
© Josh Miller/CNETPhotoshop all apps. 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
Here are the versions of Office 365, Microsoft 365 and their apps that you can find online for free right now.
If you're a student or a teacher
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.
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.
If you're anyone 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:
- 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
© Provided by CNET Use the browser-based version of the Microsoft Word app for free. Screenshot by Alison DeNisco Rayome/CNETIs there a 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.
Is There An App For Office 365
There are still a number of benefits, however, 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 tips: Secret Start menu, taking screenshots and more
Join Transform 2021 for the most important themes in enterprise AI & Data. Learn more.
Is There An Office 365 App For Iphone
Microsoft today launched Office for Android and iOS in general availability. The unified app means you no longer need to download, install, and switch between the individual Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps. The company today also announced new features coming to the app this spring: Word Dictation, Excel Cards View, and Outline to PowerPoint. You can download the app now for Android phones and tablets (limited support) from Google Play and for iOS from Apple's App Store (iPhone-only, iPad support is coming later). You can use Office for free, and if you sign in with a Microsoft Account or connect a third-party storage service you can access and store documents in the cloud.
Microsoft has over 200 million monthly active Office 365 business users and over 37 million Office 365 consumer subscribers. When the company launched the new Office mobile app as a public preview in November, 'tens of thousands of people' rushed to try it. Microsoft has found that most users and businesses want to use the Office app as a hub or starting point for all their document work. 'The idea behind the Office app is to give our users a single place from which they can access all their relevant content,' Office product manager Nithya Sampathkumar told VentureBeat. But that's not the only reason to adopt it — Microsoft's push to roll out nifty AI features in Office is especially noticeable in this launch.
Between public preview and general availability, the Office app has gained several enhancements. On both Android and iOS, Office now includes templates to help you create new documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, as well as support for third-party cloud storage services Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and iCloud. On iOS, you can now create a Presentation from images and use Dark Mode. On Android, Office gained a bunch of tablet optimizations.
All Microsoft Office 365 Apps
Additive features
The only functionality that the standalone Word, Excel, and PowerPoint mobile apps have that Office doesn't yet have is optimized tablet support on Android and iOS. Other than that, all the functionality of the existing mobile apps is there. You can thus uninstall the other three apps if you'd like. After all, the Office app does take up less space than the three apps. Additionally, businesses now only need to deploy and update one app. We asked Microsoft 365 general manager Rob Howard if the three will be killed off, and he said no.
'There's definitely no disruption we want to cause,' Howard said. 'There are hundreds of millions of downloads of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as individual apps on Android and iOS. We're not getting rid of those, killing those, or telling people they need to change their workflow. If people are happy with those and excited about them, we absolutely want them to continue using them.'
We asked Microsoft for a full list of features in the Office app that aren't available in the individual Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps. If you do choose to install Office, here's what you can expect.
Home
First, there's the Home screen, which has the following features:
- Recommended documents
- Files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF), media, and notes all in one place
- Search for files across your organization, cloud storage, and device
The AI-based recommended documents section is pretty powerful because it leverages the Microsoft Graph to serve up relevant suggestions. It takes into consideration which documents you've created that others have read or edited, which documents you have read and edited, how long you spent in a document, recency, frequency, sharing, and so on. 'It's taking all of that signal about all the different ways you collaborate and then building recommendations on what's the content that I'm most likely to be interested in, and then looking at the activity of those documents and prioritizing them using machine learning,' Howard explained.
Best of all, the Office app tries to precache documents so you can open them quickly (or even offline).
New button and Actions
Next, there's the New button, which includes:
- Sticky notes
- Lens (for digitally enhanced whiteboards, documents, and photos)
- Scan text — Take a picture of a document and turn it into an editable Word document
- Scan table — Take a picture of a table and turn it into an editable Excel spreadsheet
- Choose pictures — Get a jumpstart on a new presentation simply by choosing pictures from your device
Lens is worth calling out because it uses AI to convert images taken with your device's camera into editable Word and Excel documents. Lens can also scan PDFs, capture whiteboards, and even automatically digitally enhance what was captured. The next three options also leverage AI to help make content creation in Office much more productive on mobile. 'Lens is all about connecting the physical world and pulling into the digital word,' Howard said.
Is There An App For Office 365
Finally, there are Actions, which represent common tasks people encounter on the go:
- Transfer files — Quickly share files between your phone and computer using a QR code
- Share nearby (Android only) — Share files to other nearby Android phones with the Office app
- Sign a PDF
- Scan to PDF
- Pictures to PDF
- Document to PDF
- Scan QR Code
- Image to Text
- Image to Table
Interestingly, almost all of these are mobile-only experiences. Again, Microsoft isn't just porting over desktop features here.
Word Dictation, Excel Cards, and Outline to PowerPoint
Microsoft also shared what's next for the Office app. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint help you view documents and maybe even do a little light editing. Office is meant to be for 'more sophisticated work.'
Android app player free download. 'The big focus for us with Office on mobile is to help people not just consume content but also create content,' said Howard. 'To help them really be productive on the phone.'
Microsoft plans to ship the next three features this spring.
Word Dictation will do exactly what you'd expect — it will use AI to turn your voice into written text. But that's not all — you will be able to use voice commands (such as 'numbered list' or 'new line') while still having access to toolbars and formatting options as you dictate.
Excel Cards View converts table rows to a more digestible card format so you do not have swipe back and forth across columns on your screen. It's essentially an easier way to view and edit the data in an Excel row on mobile.
Outline to PowerPoint lets you write your presentation content as a simple outline. PowerPoint Designer, the AI-powered service that offers presentation suggestions, will then turn it into slides using styling, formatting, and iconography.
Beyond Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
These features will be coming to the new Office app first and will show up in the individual Word, Excel, and PowerPoint soon after. Howard explained that while the codebase is the same for all these apps, the testing they go through is different, resulting in a lag between the same feature landing in different apps.
Apps Included With Office 365
Microsoft is also exploring whether to build more apps into the Office app, such as OneNote. 'We are looking at ‘How do we add more capabilities?'' Sampathkumar said. 'Users do tell us, ‘We see this as a content hub. We want to see OneNote here.' We are looking at how we can add it while still keeping the size small. We don't want the size of the app to bloat up. Because for users who do not use OneNote, they don't want a bloated app.'
VentureBeat
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative technology and transact. Our site delivers essential information on data technologies and strategies to guide you as you lead your organizations. We invite you to become a member of our community, to access:- up-to-date information on the subjects of interest to you
- our newsletters
- gated thought-leader content and discounted access to our prized events, such as Transform
- networking features, and more