Microsoft 365 is the de facto option. But if you just need to open, edit, and create basic documents, you don’t have to spend anything.

If you don’t want to spend money on Word and Excel, there are options for getting these programs for free—options that are legal and above board, and offered by Microsoft.

You can get a heap of apps, including Microsoft Office, PowerPoint and Excel at no cost, whether you're a student, teacher or just on a budget. Here's how to get Microsoft 365 for free.

Microsoft is testing a free version of Office apps for Windows, offering Word, PowerPoint and Excel at no charge, but it comes with ad-support and limited features.

Microsoft makes a free version of Microsoft Word available for anyone to use on the web.You have to register a Microsoft account, but that's free too. As the app works entirely inside a web ...

There are two ways to get Microsoft Word (or Excel, or Powerpoint) for free here in late 2021 and for the foreseeable future. The first way is Microsoft Word for mobile via Google Play or for iOS ...

Office apps will launch at startup in a paused state, shortening the wait time when you first want to access them.

As web apps go, these are pretty comprehensive—you can select, drag, right-click, and more, just as you would in traditional Word, Excel, and PowerPoint versions.

The new Word for iOS, which offers basic editing functions for free, makes it to the No. 2 spot among free apps in Apple's App Store in less than a day.

That’s plenty of time to enjoy Microsoft Word for free, as well as to try out the rest of the Microsoft 365 apps so you can decide whether you want to pay for it after your trial period is up.