Use Word Online Free, Use Excel App Free and Other Office Apps

Microsoft Office applications are invaluable and are used by thousands of people every day. The cost to gain access to these applications is fair in my opinion, however, Microsoft offers a way of accessing and using the same office applications, without having to pay anything. The paid versions do offer more and have a better feel when using the applications, I must admit I prefer it, but the free applications offer a lot. Currently, the applications available without cost are Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Sway, Skype, Flow, and Forms. That is quite a lot to offer for free and I am happy they do.

How Do I Access the Applications?

To access the applications first access and open the Outlook website, you can click on this link to head straight there. This does not have to be on any particular machine, you can do this on a library computer or your own computer.

Once there, you will need to create a free Outlook email account or sign in if you already have an account with them. The process is self-explanatory and very easy, the account can be made within a couple of minutes, ready for you to use.

After creating or logging into your Outlook email account you will be routed into your mailbox, where you normally would send, receive and view emails. As standard, the applications to use should be immediately visible on the left-hand side which you can click on to use straight away.

If you would like to see the full view of your free applications to use, you will need to find and click on the applications menu icon located in the top left-hand corner; the icon is 9 dots in the shape of a square.

Outlook will then display a list of applications for you to choose from, such as Microsoft Word, simply click on the application of your choice, wait for the page to load and you will be taken to a web version of it.

That is all there is to accessing the applications, it is a great gesture from Microsoft to allow for these applications to be used for free. I am sure this will help many people who need to use these fantastic applications.

A Few Helpful Tips

1. Using these web version Office applications, there are some negatives, such as the web browser search bar or bookmarks bar taking up extra space at the top of the page. To avoid this frustration I advise you to switch to full-screen mode, usually, this can be done by pressing the f11 key on your keyboard, if that does not work then try pressing the fn and f11 keys together, or by accessing the web browser menu icon and then clicking on the full-screen icon (This may vary depending on your browser). To exit, press the same keys used to enter full-screen mode.

2. If you are using Word, you will find that it defaults to using the 'Normal' formatting style, you can see this at the top right corner of the application. This style of formatting by default uses double spacing, each time you press enter/return on your keyboard you will have a large space between the lines of text. To avoid this from happening, change the formatting style to 'No spacing' as shown below.

3. In terms of saving your files Microsoft provides users with 5 gigabytes of free OneDrive storage, this storage is used for storing your files. To save a file, click on file on the top left corner, then save as, and then again save as. Your email accounts OneDrive storage area will open and allow you to save files within there, just like on your computer, it will allow you to choose the folder to save your files in. OneDrive is simply storage but on the cloud environment, after saving your files into it, you can access them again by going into the 9 dot square icon on the top left corner and clicking on OneDrive, you will be able to see all of your files and folders immediately here and just like a normal folder, you can move, copy, rename and delete files. Files can also be saved from the cloud onto your desktop, this is done by clicking on the file on the top left corner, then save as, followed by download a copy.

4. If you are looking to use the applications here regularly, access the application and then bookmark them into your browser, so the next time you want to use an application, you can simply click open your browser and click on the icon at the top, like below.

5. What is great about using applications online like this is, collaboration. As a support engineer I used, Microsoft Excel to log and track software issues, at the same time I needed my manager and fellow colleagues to be able to access my Excel file and make changes to it if needed. By using online Microsoft Office applications I was able to do this and have only those people view my files which made work much easier. Whenever I had information to update my document with, I would document the changes and whenever my colleagues had information to add so did they, this allowed all of us to stay up to date by just checking for each other's updates. To share a file with specific people, click on file on the top left corner, then share, followed by share with people. A small window will appear asking for more information, simply change the permission from 'anyone with the link' to 'specific people', then just type in the email address of each person you would like to have access to the document in question, and click send.

Note: The email address must be a Microsoft email account.