This is another 30-day trial, aimed at potential enterprise customers.

It was an upgrade, naturally, because its always been an upgrade.

I also remember I first bought Office sometime before Bill Clinton was president.

After that, every three to five years, when Microsoft revved the product, Id pull out my wallet and pay Redmond for the new shiny bits.

That was when Microsoft turned Office into a subscription service.

In July 2017, Microsoft announced that revenues for Office 365 beat out that of traditional Office licenses.

Then, in October 2017, the company predicted it will have two-thirds of all Office users in the cloud by this coming summer.

Also: What is Microsoft 365 Microsofts most important subscription bundle, explained But what if you dont want to be part of the cha-ching flow that keeps Clippy in caffeine Sure, you could look to one of the excellent Office alternative distributions, like LibreOffice.

Microsoft 365 Trial For Free As It

But what if you want to use real Office, but for free As it turns out, there are a few legitimate ways to use Office 365 without paying for it.

Not all solutions apply to everyone, but for some of you, the following words may get you to the point where you can excel.

Free, online Office apps If youre willing to use slightly feature-limited online versions of the venerable Office applications, you can.

As you might imagine, this free offering is Microsofts direct response to the various free Google Docs offerings.

Free Office mobile apps.

Microsoft 365 Trial Full Office Applications

Weve looked at these versions before, and theyre excellent implementations of the full Office applications -- again with some minor feature limitations.

One note: size does matter when it comes to Office mobile apps.

If your screen is larger than 10.1 inches, you will have to pay for Office 365.

That means that if youre running one of the cheaper iPads, alls good.

But if youre using a 10.5-inch or 12.9-inch iPad Pro, youll need to pay your tithe to the House That Bill Built.

Educational versions If you have one of the right.edu email addresses, whether you are a student, a teacher, or possibly even an alum, you can get the full Office 365 product for free.

That includes the full, download-and-install applications, an Exchange account, Teams, and more.

The gotcha is that your school has to buy an educational license to Office.

If you want to see if your educational email address will help you win the free Office lottery, go to this page and enter your.edu address.

Good luck 4. Trial version If you dont need to make Office into a career, and all you need to do is crank out one PowerPoint or Excel spreadsheet this month, a trial version of Office might do you.

Youll have to give M your credit card -- and remember to cancel the trial before the month runs out.

Otherwise, your free trial will turn into a years payment for Office 365 Home edition.

Try again People have reported, undoubtedly in violation of the terms of service, using a different email address and credit card to get another month trial of Office 365.

Thats a lot of work to avoid paying for a pretty exceptional software suite.

I wouldnt advise it, but apparently, its been done.

Try, try again: the ProPlus trial Because the idea of doing something only one way is a cultural anathema to the Redmond folk, there is a second legitimate way to get a trial version of Office.

In this case, were pointing you to the Microsoft Office ProPlus trial.

Microsoft 365 For Mac Free Trial