This is how you use Office without a subscription

The American software giant is promoting two subscriptions under the name Microsoft 365. It allows customers to install Office applications Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook on all their devices. During the subscription, customers receive updates and upgrades. In short, always work with the latest version.

Microsoft 365 Personal costs 69 euros per year. In addition to the Office apps, this subscription provides access to 1TB of cloud storage with Microsoft OneDrive. Families may want to consider Microsoft 365 Family. After tapping 99 euros, up to six people can access the apps for a year. Also, its online storage capacity is 6TB.

A subscription to Microsoft 365 is relatively expensive if you don’t want cloud storage. Prefer to store personal data elsewhere? Then take a look at the possibilities to use Office without a subscription.

Instead of the two subscription types mentioned, you can also purchase the office software once. It costs 149 Euros via Microsoft’s own website, but the product is also available in various (web)shops. This relates to the 2021 versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The Outlook mail program is therefore not included. You can get around this with the Mail app in Windows 10 or 11.

There are two other important limitations. For example, you can only install office software on a PC or Mac. Also, there is no upgrade option in this version. If a new version of Office for Home Use and Students is released in the future, you’ll pay full price for it.

You don’t actually need an expensive subscription or expensive software to use Office on a computer. Try the free Office web editions. They offer a surprising number of options!

Edit documents directly in the browser when signed in with a Microsoft account. Compared to a subscription or paid Office suite, the web versions contain less functionality. Fortunately, it’s fine for most users. You can also collaborate in real time with other people on a shared document.

The Microsoft Office app is available for both Android and iOS. Get instant access to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. You use these apps for free. Create text documents, manipulate data in spreadsheets and create beautiful presentations as you wish. If you only use the common functions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, you can start using the basic version of the Microsoft Office application.

Microsoft 365 subscribers can access a variety of Premium functionality in the Microsoft Office app. Therefore, these options are hidden for free users. This concerns, for example, a writing aid when processing texts. In addition, Microsoft 365 subscribers can collaborate more easily within documents.

In addition to Microsoft, other software developers also produce office programs. Many publishers even do it for free. For example, LibreOffice and Zoho Suite are full-fledged alternatives to Microsoft Office. Use it to your advantage!