Buying Office: how to buy a license and save money

On Mr Key Shop you can also purchase numerous other digital licenses on offer, such as those of Microsoft operating systems (Windows 11, Windows 8.1, Windows 7), licenses for the best VPNs and the best antiviruses on the market (Norton, Avast, Kaspersky, ESET, McAfee, Bitdefender,) and products Windows Server.

Which version of Office to choose

Before purchasing one Office license on offeryou need to understand which Office package is best for your needs.

Although it is rare to have a non-computer compatible with Microsoft Officeyou need to make sure that the program, once purchased, can actually be installed on your device, which must therefore meet the minimum requirements to make it work.

Giving an example with Office 2021the most recent version of the suite, These are the minimum requirements for PC and Mac:

• Windows 10 for PC and one of the last three versions of the macOS operating system.
• A 1.1Ghz, 2-core processor for Windows and an Intel or Apple Silicon for MacOS.
• A 4 GB RAM memory for both operating systems.
• 4 GB of available space on a PC and 10 GB on a Mac.
• A screen resolution of 1280 x 768 for Windows and 1280 x 800 for macOS.
• Finally, DirectX 9 with WDDM 2.0 is required.

If a device meets these requirements, all Office packages can be installed and will function regularly. But now we move on to the next question: which version of the Office package to buy?

The difference between the versions is in the number of applications they include, you must therefore choose based on the programs you need, taking into account that the more expensive the Office packages are, the more programs they contain. Always taking example Office 2021: the version “Professional” is the most expensive and contains all the programs in the suite, while the version “Home & Student” it is the cheapest and contains only Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Finally, you need to consider how long a version of Office will be supported. In particular, from 2023 Office 2013 will no longer receive updates, while Office 2010 has already been dropped from Microsoft support.

Is it possible to activate Office for free?

Downloading and activating Office for free is legally possible thanks to Microsoft, which offers three ways to get Office for free.

The most common method is to take advantage of the period of Microsoft 365 trial. Once the free download and installation of the suite have been completed, a 30-day free trial will be available. It can be very useful as a test bed to understand whether it is worth buying an Office license or not, but as mentioned, at the end of the trial period you will need to activate the subscription.

Alternatively, Microsoft offers it for free Office Onlineone web version free of charge of the suite available exclusively online. Obviously there are limitations: in addition to the fact that to use the online suite it is essential to always have an internet connection, only some programs are available (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and One Note) and the functions are very limited compared to the version classic.

Finally, there is the possibility reserved for teachers and students to have a free Microsoft Office license. In this case you access the full version of the suite, but the solution is only available for the two categories indicated.

This applies to PCs and Macs, while there is another way to get Office for free for mobile devices. In the case of smartphones and tablets with a screen smaller than 10.1″ you can download all the Microsoft Office Suite applications for free and without limits from the Play Store or App Store. The disadvantage, in this case, is the size of the screen, which makes it difficult to use for those who work with this software for a long time.

Unless you are a teacher or student, the best choice is to buy a lifetime digital license from an online store and save money. Also because you have to be very careful about the illegal solutions that the web offers to use Office for free.

There are online portals from which you can download Office files without a license, but there is no way of knowing what you are downloading, so these files are potentially harmful to the device on which they will be installed.

Another common method to illegally activate an Office license is i KMS (Key Manager System) emulated, i.e. illegal software that allows you to activate Office, Windows and other programs for free by periodically changing the activation key. To do this, however, they must always be active and have complete access to the device, putting it at risk, as it is not known what other files they can install on the device (ransomware, trojans, malware, etc.).

How to download Office

Once you have purchased the digital license of the suite, this is the procedure for downloading Office for PC or Mac:

• Access the site
  Office.com
  

• Click on “Sign in”at the top right, and enter your Microsoft account credentials (or create one, because Office cannot be downloaded without an account).

• Enter the activation key (the Product Key will be in the email sent by Mr Key Shop after purchase).

• Download the installation file.

Install and activate Office

Installing Office, both on Mac and PC, is a very simple process: just double-click on the previously downloaded file and follow the instructions that appear on the screen.

Once the installation is complete, all you have to do is activate the version of Office purchased and you can use it.

Here's how to activate Office:

1. To boot for the first time any Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.).

2. Log into to Office with the Microsoft account used to download the program.

3. Office is now active and can be used.

Conclusions

Buying a digital license for Microsoft Office from an online retailer therefore guarantees huge savings. You can test the Office suite thanks to the free trials offered by Microsoft and then you can purchase the Product Key of the version of Office more suitable on Mr Key Shop going to save up to 80% on the license price.