How do you get Microsoft Office for free?
By Jim Gordon
Co-author of Office 2011 for Mac All-in-One For Dummies

Strategy #1: Use the free, on-line version of Microsoft Office.
Microsoft charges only for versions with extra features.

The free on-line version works right in your web browser (Safari and Firefox are supported), so there's nothing to download. It's right here:
http://www.skydrive.com/

Strategy #2: Use a complete, full version for free duing the free-trial period.

For a limited time free trial of the full version:
Office 2010 for Windows
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/

Office 2011 for Mac
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/

Strategy #3:
Get Microsoft Office from your employer, school, college, or university

Strategy #4:
Use free office software from competing companies

Be realistic. These are free alternatives to Microsoft Office. None of them have the complete feature set of Microsoft Office. All of them have compatibility problems with Microsoft products to varying degrees, especially if you use charts, multimedia, VBA or add-ins. All of them can open, edit, and save word processing, spreadhseet and presentation files. Most can not save in the default, standard open XML office format. Each program has an interface that is different from Microsoft Office. None of the free alternatives are "just as good" if that means having every feature of Microsoft Office. They just don't. If they did, people and organizations wouldn't shell out the money to Microsoft for their products. Are any of the free alternatives bad? No. But none of these alternative products is identical to Microsoft Office. They all work on both Macs and PCs except for Bean. Here are some popular alternatives to Microsoft Office:

Lotus Smyphony
Lotus Symphony is made by IBM. Symphony is available for Mac OSX and Windows.
Click here for the Symphony download site.

Google Docs
One of several on-line web browser based Office alternatives is Google Docs. Its claim to fame is easy document sharing. Charts in Excel don't fare well at all with Google Docs as of this writing (April, 2010).

ThinkFree
Another Microsoft Office alternative is ThinkFree.

ZoHo
Yet another Microsoft Office alternative is ZoHo.

Bean
Bean is a free, light-weight word processor for Mac OS X.

OpenOffice
OpenOffice was made by Sun Microsystems, which was rescued by Oracle.
OpenOffice has two enhanced free versions to choose from:

• Windows users should use SourceForge OxygenOffice.
• Mac users should use Planamesa Inc. NeoOffice, which is Snow Leopard compatible. NeoOffice posts a warning notice.
  

Strategy #5
Ask for Microsoft Office for your birthday or a holiday, such as Christmas.

Don't be bashful!

• Don't pay for OpenOffice. It's free.
  
• Watch out for bait and switch fraud. Don't pay for a "Microsoft Office Compatible" suite that's really just OpenOffice. The word "compatible" is the tip-off, along with a price that's too good to be true. Don't get stuck paying for OpenOffice thinking you're buying Microsoft Office.
• Watch out for phishing scams. Don't give your email address or other personal information until AFTER you know the terms of sale.
  
• Don't buy an OEM version of Microsoft Office. OEM stands for "Original Equipment Manufacturer" and is sold to computer companies like Dell and Gateway so that they can include Microsoft Office bundled with their hardware. OEM installers are not intended for ordinary new installs of Microsoft Office. An OEM bundle will probably not work on your computer unless your PC came with Microsoft Office factory installed and you have the original product ID code. If you lost or never got your product code or Microsoft Office install media, contact the seller or PC manufacturer. PCs are not always sold with Microsoft Office included.
• Don't buy an "upgrade" package unless you already have the required older version.
  
• Sometimes the full version is on sale for less than the upgrade price. It can pay to compare prices.
  

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