Office frequently asked questions
Find answers to commonly asked questions about Office and Office 365. Visit the Office 365 for business FAQ for more questions and answers for business users.
Top questions
No. Office applications are tailored to work best on each platform and device. The Office applications available for Mac users and the version numbers may be different from those available for PC users.
People using Office 365, Office 2016, Office 2013, and Office 2010 applications can open documents created using Office 2019 without any additional action.
Users can activate 1 subscription for Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal and up to 25 licenses for Office Home & Student 2016, Office Home & Business 2016, and Office Professional 2016.
About Office trials
- Full Office desktop applications (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, and Outlook, plus Publisher and Access for Windows PCs).
- 1 TB of additional OneDrive cloud storage so you can save documents, photos and videos online and access them from nearly anywhere.
- 60 Skype minutes that you can use to call mobile phones and landlines. See the list.
- Create or sign in with an existing Microsoft account. What is a Microsoft account?
- Provide payment information to enable future monthly payments. International credit cards and PayPal (in some markets) are accepted.
- The payment method you provide will be automatically charged at the end of your first free month to ensure that you do not experience any interruptions with your service. You can cancel online without penalty before your trial ends, by visiting https://account.microsoft.com and turning off recurring billing in the payment and billing area.
- Once your payment method is confirmed, you'll be transferred to https://account.microsoft.com to install Office.
- If you signed up via the Office website, and if recurring billing is enabled on the Microsoft Account site, your service will continue uninterrupted and your payment method will be automatically charged at the end of the trial, and then monthly thereafter. You do not need to re-install Office.
- If you signed up by clicking an icon on your new PC, your trial ends automatically after a month; it isn’t necessary to cancel it. When the trial ends, you’ll be prompted to choose which version of Office you want to purchase.
Not immediately. For example, if you had a trial of Office 365 Personal, you can’t sign up for a trial of Office 365 Home. However, one year after your trial or paid subscription ends, you can sign up for a new trial.
Product keys, redemption, and activation
It's best to use your existing Microsoft account. If you use other Microsoft products or services (e.g. Xbox, OneDrive, Outlook.com, MSN or Bing), you may already have a Microsoft account and won’t need to create a new one. If you forgot your username or password, recover those details by returning to sign in and clicking on Can't access your account?
Language support for Office
- For PCs running Windows: Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay (Malaysia), Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.
- For Mac: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, English (United States), Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmal), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.
- For iOS: Arabic, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (United States), English (United Kingdom), Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.
- For Android: Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Catalan, Kannada, Malayalam, Persian, Tamil, and Telugu.
- Office 365: Each time you install Office on an additional PC or Mac at https://account.microsoft.com, you can choose the language in which to install Office.
- Office 2016 suites: You can install language accessory packs after installing Microsoft Office, to add additional display, help, or proofing tools. Learn more about the Language Accessory Pack for Office 2016.
- Office 2013 suites: You can install language packs after installing Microsoft Office, to add additional display, help, or proofing tools. Learn more.
About OneDrive
- Customers with an active Office 365 Personal or Office 365 University subscription receive an additional 1 TB of OneDrive storage per subscription.
- Customers with an active Office 365 Home subscription receive an additional 1 TB of OneDrive storage per user, for up to 6 users. Each additional user must have their own Microsoft account and be added to the Microsoft Account site.
If you cancel your subscription or if it expires, you can still access and download all your files by signing in to OneDrive directly using the Microsoft account you used to set up Office 365. You do lose the additional storage that comes with your subscription, so you must save your files elsewhere or buy more OneDrive storage if your OneDrive account exceeds the free storage quota.
They lose the additional OneDrive storage, but they can still access and download all files. If their OneDrive account exceeds the free storage quota, they'll need to save files elsewhere or buy more OneDrive storage.
About Skype minutes4
- Both landlines and mobile phones: Canada, China, Guam, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States.
- Landlines only: Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Colombia (excl. Lex), Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guadeloupe, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia (Jakarta), Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom, and Venezuela.
Office 365 University3
Office 365 University is available in the following countries/regions: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong SAR, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam. Office 365 University will be available in each of the countries/regions listed as the new Office is released in that country/region.
Download and install Office
- Windows
o Windows 7: Start menu
o Windows 8: Start screen and Apps view (the view under the Start screen that includes all apps installed on a PC)*
o Windows 8.1: Apps view*
*If you cannot find your icons in Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, go to the Start screen and type the name of the application you want to launch (for example, Word).
- Mac OS X
o 10.6 (Snow Leopard): Docko 10.7 (Lion): Dock and Launchpado 10.8 (Mountain Lion): Dock and Launchpado 10.9 (Mavericks): Dock and Launchpado 10.10 (Yosemite): You can start the applications by clicking the application icons which can be found in the Launchpad and Applications folder in Finder
- Office 365 customers can download or reinstall from https://account.microsoft.com.
- You may order a DVD backup copy for the latest release Office products for a fee. Visit www.office.com/backup for details.
Office 365 customers with an active subscription always get the newest versions of the Office applications when they are available. When we release a new version of Office, you will be notified that you have the option to update your software to the latest version.
Managing your Office 365 subscription
If you purchased a recurring billing subscription, your subscription starts when you complete your purchase. Recurring billing subscriptions may be purchased from Office365.com, MicrosoftStore.com, the iTunes® Store, and some other retailers. If you purchased a pre-paid subscription, your subscription starts when you activate your subscription and land on your My Account page. Pre-paid subscriptions may be purchased from a retailer or reseller, or a Microsoft support agent.
Your Microsoft account can only have one active subscription. If you activate your Office 365 Personal or Office 365 University subscription before your Office 365 Home subscription expires, the remaining time on your Office 365 Home subscription will be converted to the Office 365 Personal or Office 365 University subscription (whichever you have chosen). You will immediately lose the Office 365 Home benefits of installing Office on multiple PCs/Macs, tablets, and phones, including Windows, iOS, and Android for Office 365 Personal. You may choose to wait until your Office 365 Home subscription expires before activating your Office 365 Personal or Office 365 University subscription so you do not lose installs.3
Your Microsoft account can have only one active subscription. If you activate your Office 365 Personal subscription before your Office 365 University subscription expires, the remaining time on your Office 365 University subscription will be converted to Office 365 Personal. However, you will be allowed to install Office on only as many devices as your new subscription plan allows for—1 PC or Mac, plus 1 tablet and 1 phone for Office 365 Personal. You may choose to wait until your Office 365 University subscription expires before activating your Office 365 Personal so you do not lose installs.3
Your Microsoft account can have only one active subscription. You can either convert your Office 365 Home subscription to Office 365 Personal or Office 365 University, or you can wait until your current subscription expires before activating your Office 365 Personal or Office 365 University subscription.3
Renewals, cancellations, and billing
- If you have a recurring billing subscription, it will continue until cancelled. Your billing settings are shown on the Microsoft Account site after you sign in with the Microsoft account that you used to buy Office.
- If recurring billing is not enabled, visit www.office.com/renew to purchase an Office 365 recurring billing subscription. The additional time will be automatically added to the remaining time on your existing subscription.
- To renew through the retailer that you purchased Office 365 from, return to that retailer and purchase another pre-paid one-year subscription. Follow the setup instructions included in the packaging – they are the same for setting up a new subscription. The additional year will be automatically added to the remaining time on your existing subscription.
Yes. When you renew early to the same Office 365 plan that you already have, the additional time is added to your existing subscription. For example, if you have two months left on your current subscription to Office 365 Home and you renew for one year (12 months), your subscription will run for 14 months.
- If you purchased a recurring billing subscription from Microsoft via MicrosoftStore.com or Office365.com, you have two options for cancelling:
o To cancel immediately, contact Microsoft support and request an immediate cancellation.
- If you purchased a recurring billing subscription from Apple via the iTunes Store, you will need to cancel your subscription with Apple. Learn more.
- If you purchased a recurring billing subscription from another retailer, you may have to cancel your subscription with that retailer. You can confirm this by visiting the Microsoft Account site.
Support and resources
- Order status
- Billing
- Download
- Product key
- Installation/de-installation
- Product activation
- Product use