Get Microsoft 365 for Free

In this post I would like to let you know why you should a Microsoft 365 subscription. Microsoft 365 was previously known as Microsoft Office.

Are you using the Google Apps? Google apps are great, but is it time to switch? Should you look at the free version of Microsoft 365? Or, instead of switching, maybe use them together like a lot of people do now.

I know you love your Google Docs and Sheets, but did you start using Google because it was free, and Microsoft charged for their software?

Back then, Microsoft Office was an expensive software package, but now you can get Microsoft 365 online version for free. And have all the same functionality as you have with the Google apps plus much more.

I have heard the resistance to using Office as “I don’t want to create a Microsoft account”. Use the account as a secondary email, just like having multiple google accounts which many of us have. The Microsoft account can be used for signing up with companies to keep certain emails from your main email account.

You can go to Office365.microsoft.com in your web browser to sign up for the free version, or the easiest way is to use the keyboard keys of Shift + Ctrl + WindowsKey + Alt at the same time and that will bring up the Microsoft 365 Screen.

You can access Microsoft 365 from any device, including your browser, a Desktop PC, a tablet, or a phone, for Macs, iOS, and Android. Speaking of phones, you can use Skype for voice and video calls with friends or business meetings

Another reason to use Microsoft 365 is that it is always up to date. You always have all the new features and apps being added. For example, recent additions are a Video Editor Clipchamp and adding Artificial Intelligence (AI) to their apps including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and more.

Besides the standard apps, you will get 5 Gig more of cloud storage to use in case you are running of space on Google Drive. Get 15 Gig for email through Outlook. You can use Outlook for a separate purpose than your main regular email.

A couple of other useful apps are PowerPoint and OneNote. Use OneNote for keeping random notes, or lists of Todo items, and even draw doodles or sketches.

PowerPoint can be used for presentations, obviously, but did you know you can make social media post graphics? And surprise, I used PowerPoint to make an entire YouTube video in PowerPoint.

If you deal with corporations, you really want to make sure everything is compatible when you send documents to them. It’s not a good impression if the company sees the formatting off, especially if it involves financials in a spreadsheet or a document.

I know you can save documents and sheets in Google in a Microsoft format, but there are some compatibility issues where not all features in Google transfer over to a Word or Excel document.

As you develop and grow, you usually need more tools to add to your toolbox. While Google has a few apps to use, Microsoft has more to offer than Google. And Microsoft is adding more and more apps as time goes on.

Microsoft has been busy upgrading and adding new apps all the time. There are apps that Google doesn’t have that Microsoft does.

I am not trying to get you to give up Google and switch to Microsoft. I created this blog and a YouTube channel to help with making the tasks you do a little easier and perhaps open up new ideas for people to think about. Use both Google and Microsoft 365 together.

Would you like to be more productive using AI? Microsoft is adding AI to all of its apps, like Word and Excel. The Bing search engine in the Edge browser already has it available for search or text creations. Also available is “Designer”, that is similar to Canva, and “Creator” to create AI generated art.

I hope this post gave you some good information. If you liked this post and will grab a cup of coffee or a cold drink and join me in another post adventure.