The Microsoft Office applications will get a free version in Windows 11, but you’ll have to add advertising and limited functionality.
Until now, to use the desktop versions of Word, Excel and other applications in the Office bundle, you always had to take a paid license. Only the Web versions were free to use. That is about to change: Microsoft has quietly launched a free Office desktop app for Windows 11. Beebom discovered this well-kept secret.
Free Office
The free version is only available for Windows 11, knowing that support for Windows 10 will expire in a few months. You download the desktop version of Office as usual from Microsoft’s website, if the bundle is not already installed on your device. After installation, open an app of your choice, such as Word, and click at the bottom of the dialog box on Skip now.
This points you through to a drop-down menu where you can choose between the free version or still get a Microsoft 365 subscription. Select the free version and you can use Word for free and for nothing.
Advertising and limited features
Nothing is completely free in life and so, as a user, you will have to make some concessions if you do not want to pay for the desktop version of Office. Although Microsoft does little to no advertising for the free version, it does not hold back on ads in the applications. A banner is permanently in the right half of the screen and a 15-second advertising video plays after every hour.
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Moreover, Microsoft has cut back on functionality. A lot of features you are used to are missing from the free applications. Certainly don’t look for Copilot in this version. The biggest limitation of all is that Microsoft does not allow you to store files locally. You are required to purchase a OneDrive subscription. OneDrive also has a free version that offers 5 GB of storage.
If you can live with advertising and those limitations, then Office is henceforth free to use offline. There are other free-to-use alternatives that offer more functionality, such as LibreOffice and Google Docs, which is available offline with a workaround .