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About this lesson
Learn how to access Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and other Microsoft 365 applications in Windows 11.
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Quick reference
Access Microsoft 365 Applications
Understand how to access the online versions of the most popular Microsoft 365 applications from within Windows 11.
When to use
We use the online versions of the Microsoft 365 apps whenever we want to use Word, Excel, Outlook, and other applications but don't have a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Instructions
Microsoft 365 Applications
We can use popular Microsoft applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Outlook, etc. from within Windows 11 without having a subscription to Microsoft 365.
With a Microsoft 365 subscription, we pay a monthly fee to 'rent' the software from Microsoft. This gives us access to the full, desktop version of the Microsoft Office suite. We also have access to the online version of the Microsoft Office applications via a handy portal.
Whilst we can only use the full desktop versions of the Office applications if we buy a subscription, we can use the online versions for free and can access them through a link in Windows 11.
The online applications are slimmed-down versions of the full application. We can complete most daily tasks using the online versions but more specialized functionality like Mail Merge in Word can only be done in the full version.
Access Office Applications
If we don't have the full version of Office, we will see Office in the Start menu.
- Click the Start button or press the Win key.
- Click All apps.
- Scroll through and click on Office.
This will open a web browser and we will be prompted to sign in to Office. We can use our Microsoft account details or we can even use an email address such as hotmail.com, live.com, or outlook.com. If we don't have any of these, we will need to create a new account.
Office Online Portal
Once signed into Office Online, the first page we see is referred to as the portal or hub. This is our home page where we can access our recent files and jump to different Microsoft applications using the left-hand menu.
- Click on the Word icon.
This will open the online version of Word. Notice how it differs from the full desktop version. We have a simplified ribbon and fewer commands available to select. If we have OneDrive setup on our PC, all files we create in Office Online will be stored and synched automatically to the cloud.
We recommend having a tour around the interface and becoming familiar with where commands are located in the online versions.
Install Office
In the portal, we have an Install Office button. If we decide at any point that we would like to sign up for a Microsoft 365 subscription and download the full desktop versions of all Office applications, we can simply click this button and follow the prompts. There are many different types of Microsoft 365 subscriptions so be sure to read through all of the information and select the one that best suits your needs.
Login to download- 00:03 If we have a Microsoft 365 subscription and
- 00:07 we pay a monthly fee to use the software, that means that we can
- 00:11 download the full versions of the popular Office Suite applications.
- 00:16 So things like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
- 00:19 Now, when I say the full desktop versions,
- 00:21 let me just show you what I mean in case you're not sure.
- 00:25 So, I have all of the full versions of the applications downloaded to my PC,
- 00:30 because I pay a monthly subscription for Microsoft 365.
- 00:33 So if we open up Word and take a quick look at it,
- 00:36 this will look familiar to a lot of people.
- 00:38 This is the full version of Microsoft Word.
- 00:41 I have access to all of the latest functionality through Microsoft 365, and
- 00:46 I have the full ribbons and commands.
- 00:48 Now, what if you don't have a subscription to Microsoft 365?
- 00:52 Well, the good news is you can still use the Office applications.
- 00:56 The only difference being, you don't have access to the full versions.
- 01:01 Instead, you can access online versions of Word, Excel,
- 01:04 PowerPoint and other popular applications, to complete your work.
- 01:08 And the online applications are basically slimmed down versions of the full desktop
- 01:13 version.
- 01:13 So you're going to have most of the commands you need to work on a daily
- 01:17 basis, but you won't have some of the more complex or advanced tools.
- 01:22 Now for most people, this is absolutely fine.
- 01:24 If you're somebody who just does a bit of typing in Word documents,
- 01:27 maybe you like to share things with colleagues, then you're probably
- 01:30 going to find that the online versions are perfectly adequate.
- 01:34 But for more advanced users and people who do more complex documents,
- 01:37 we definitely need the full version of Word.
- 01:41 So it's entirely up to you, but the great thing is you have both options.
- 01:44 You can pay for a subscription or you don't have to, but
- 01:48 you can still use slimmed down versions of the Office applications.
- 01:51 And in Windows 11, Microsoft have made it super easy for
- 01:55 you to quickly access those online applications.
- 01:58 So let's take a look at that process.
- 02:00 Now, to access the online applications, you still need to have a Microsoft login.
- 02:05 So that might be something like an email address.
- 02:07 So maybe you have a Hotmail account or maybe a Live account, or
- 02:11 maybe you're a gamer and you have an Xbox account.
- 02:14 Whatever email address you use,
- 02:16 that's what you're going to use to sign into Microsoft.
- 02:20 So let's press the Windows logo key because we can get to our online
- 02:23 applications from directly within the Start menu.
- 02:26 Now, the application that we're looking for here is this one and
- 02:30 I have it pinned, it's called Office.
- 02:32 Remember, if you can't see it in your pinned items, click on,
- 02:36 All Apps, scroll down to O, and you should find it in there.
- 02:40 So let's click to launch.
- 02:42 Now, because I've logged into this previously,
- 02:44 mine has already logged me straight in.
- 02:47 At this stage, if you've never used this before,
- 02:49 you might be prompted to enter in your email address and your password.
- 02:53 So once you do that, it's going to take you to this window here.
- 02:57 And you can see it's telling me, welcome to your new office.
- 03:01 Create, organise, and collaborate all in one place, for free, with Office.
- 03:06 So, we're just going to move through this whole welcome screen, and
- 03:09 it's telling me that I'm using the free version of Office.
- 03:12 And I can then choose to upgrade or take a look at the plans and pricing for
- 03:17 a Microsoft 365 subscription.
- 03:19 Now, we don't have to do that, so let's move on to the next slide and
- 03:22 then click the tick.
- 03:23 So this is now logged me into my online portal.
- 03:27 And this is where I can come to access all of the online versions of my applications.
- 03:33 If you take a look on the left,
- 03:35 we have a vertical menu where we have all of our popular applications pins.
- 03:39 So we have Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, so on and
- 03:43 so forth.
- 03:44 So if I want to use the online version of Word, all I need to do is click on
- 03:48 the Word icon, and I'm effectively working in a browser.
- 03:52 So let's click on new blank document and see what the online version looks like.
- 03:57 And here we go, I am still working in a browser.
- 04:00 It's actually opened up a new browser when it loaded up Word, but
- 04:03 you can see the difference between the online version and
- 04:06 the full desktop version that I showed you at the start of this lesson.
- 04:10 The ribbon or the menu running across the top is a lot more slimmed down and
- 04:14 it's a lot more simplified.
- 04:16 And as I mentioned, you're going to find most of the things that you need to do in
- 04:19 a Word document on these ribbons.
- 04:21 An example of something that you can't do in the online version that you can
- 04:25 do in the full desktop version would be, Mail Merge.
- 04:27 So, some of the more advanced features of Word aren't available in
- 04:32 the online version.
- 04:34 But it's definitely worth opening this up and taking a look through the different
- 04:38 ribbons to ascertain what you can do and what you can't do in the free version.
- 04:42 Now, I'm just going to type some random text into this document so
- 04:45 that we have something in there.
- 04:46 And I'm going to use an old trainer's trick,
- 04:49 a quick way of getting some lines of random text.
- 04:52 We're going to say we want ten paragraphs of three lines each, and hit Enter.
- 04:58 Now notice in the title bar, it says Document one saved to OneDrive.
- 05:03 And the online applications work in sync with OneDrive.
- 05:07 So remember, even if you're using a free account,
- 05:10 you still have a certain amount of OneDrive storage.
- 05:13 So because you're working in the online versions,
- 05:16 we don't actually need to press Ctrl+S to save or do File,
- 05:20 Save, because it's constantly being saved back to OneDrive.
- 05:24 Now, what I can do up here is I can rename this.
- 05:27 So if we click, instead of it saying document one,
- 05:29 I might want to call it something else.
- 05:31 So let's just call it Test, and hit Enter.
- 05:34 So that's going to resave back to OneDrive.
- 05:37 So now, if I close this document down,
- 05:39 I could go into OneDrive through my browser and then find that file.
- 05:44 So if I click on the OneDrive icon, it's going to take me straight to
- 05:48 OneDrive Personal in File Explorer, and there is the document we just created.
- 05:53 I can then right click on this document and I can open it,
- 05:56 or I can choose an application to open with.
- 05:59 So this online portal is so
- 06:01 useful when it comes to working with your online applications.
- 06:07 Now if at this stage, you've been working with the online apps in the portal for
- 06:11 a while and you decide that you actually want to upgrade to a subscription and
- 06:15 download the full versions, then we can do that from here as well.
- 06:19 If we go back to the homepage just by clicking on the Home icon in that
- 06:23 left hand menu, notice we have Install Office and by Microsoft 365.
- 06:28 Now if I was to click install Office, it's going to ask me to select a plan or
- 06:32 a subscription package, and then it will install the applications.
- 06:37 So just be aware of that, really simple to use the Office applications,
- 06:43 even if you're using a free account.
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