Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are free

No need to look for questionable ways to restore popular Microsoft Office applications for free. There is actually a completely legal way to use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint without spending a dime.

Despite the years and profound developments in IT, the Microsoft Office suite remains one of the most popular and widely used products in the world. Its three main applications, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, remain essential tools in the professional field and can also provide many services in a personal setting.

But this software is not free and can be very expensive for simple or occasional use. To buy an individual license, you have to count on approximately 150 euros, which you will have to pay more for each new major release of the product. As for the subscription plan called Microsoft 365, it will cost about ten euros per month. However, there is a completely legal and surprisingly little-known way to use the popular Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications for free, but also other Microsoft Office products, such as forms or menus.

In fact, to respond to changes in usage and the rising power of competing office applications such as Google Docs and Sheets, Microsoft has made online versions of certain programs from its office suite available for free. Therefore, it is absolutely possible to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint in your favorite internet browser without spending a single euro. To take advantage of it, you simply need to have a Microsoft account, which can be created for free and quickly A dedicated space on the Microsoft website Which most Windows users already have. To access the apps, simply go to Office page online And sign in with your Microsoft credentials. Once this is done, you can access the Dashboard that allows you to launch and use the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint applications within your web browser.

The online versions of the software are very similar to their desktop counterparts. We find the well-known interface of the Office suite, where the ribbon brings together the different tools available in the form of tabs, so you will not get lost and you will quickly find your directions if you are used to working on the office versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. However, please note that some functions are not available in the online version of the applications: in Word it is not possible to perform a mail merge or add a watermark to the document, Excel does not allow you to create custom cell styles or add calculated fields in pivot tables, the program does not offer PowerPoint has a large number of transition effects like its classic version for example.

However, these limitations only pertain to some of the more complex functions, and the range of tools available largely meets the vast majority of office automation needs, whether for writing elaborately formatted documents, analyzing large data sets or creating sophisticated presentations. In addition, two lesser-known applications from the Office suite are also available for free, namely Forms and Lists, which, as their names indicate, allow you to create interactive forms and lists. Finally, note that to use these apps in your browser, your documents must be stored online on Microsoft's OneDrive service, of which you have 5GB of space in the free plan, which is more than enough to store a large number of office files.