Many people ask us how to download Excel for free and today we will try to satisfy them, even if you already know Microsoft Excel is a commercial software and as such can not be used without paying a license.
So how do you download Excel for free? Let’s say that there is a free trial version of Excel and that there are some alternative programs such as LIbreOffice which we will talk about later.
How to download Excel for free: here are our tips
As we anticipated, explaining how to download Excel for free is not easy because Microsoft Excel is a commercial software that can not be used for free without paying a license.
However, you can download the free trial version of Office that expires after a certain number of days or use alternative programs such as LibreOffice, an open source and free productivity package that we will talk about at the end of our guide.
Here are all our tips to download Excel for free.
Office 365
Let’s start our tutorial on how to download Excel for free by talking about the trial version of Office 365, downloadable either on Windows PC or Mac.
Office 365 is a paid suite that includes all Microsoft productivity programs, 1TB of space on OneDrive and 60 minutes of Skype conversations per month. If you want to download it for free, you can download the free 30-day trial version and, on the expiration date, decide whether to continue using paid Excel or not.
To download Excel for free just proceed with the download of Office 365 on the official Microsoft website and click on the free 1-month Evaluation button that you find under Test Office 365 for free. Now you will be asked to enter the e-mail address of your Microsoft account and the password to log in.
Once you have logged in, you must indicate a valid payment method, click Next, confirm the subscription and then wait for the Office 365 download and installation.
Now you can enter the data of the Microsoft account to activate the trial period but remember to disable the automatic renewal of the subscription if not, after the trial period, you will be charged!
Office Professional
For those looking for free Excel, a viable alternative is Office Professional, which offers a free 60-day trial period. Unlike Office 365, it is a program downloadable only on Windows PC and costs are much higher: you go from 100 dollars to 539 dollars depending on the package chosen but, as we said, there is a free trial version of 60 days.
Do you want to download it? Then connect to the official Microsoft website, go to the Office Professional Plus 2019 section and click on Login to log in with your Microsoft account.
Now click on the button Register to continue and fill out the form with all the required data, choosing also the version of Office you want to download:
- 32-bit Office
- Office 64 bit
Remember to write down the license code that will be shown on the screen because you will be asked later to activate the trial of the program. Then you can start the download of Office Professional and, once completed, you will get an image file in ISO format that you can burn or use directly on your computer
Finally, install Office, activate it by entering the license code (have you marked it?) And start Excel to start using it immediately for free.
Excel mobile app
Do you have a smartphone or a tablet and want to know how to download Excel for free? Then you’re lucky because Microsoft distributes the mobile version of Office for free to all Android, iOS and Windows Phone users.
So just download the free Excel app on your device and use it to work on your spreadsheets directly from your smartphone or tablet. If you have a Windows device, instead, the Office suite is already installed as standard.
The mobile version of Office offers almost all the features available in the PC program except for some advanced operations that are reserved for those who have an Office 365 subscription.
How to download Excel for free: tryLibreOffice
Have you finished the trial month of Office and do not want to proceed with the subscription of the monthly subscription? The only valid alternative, then, is to install LibreOffice, the free and open source suite available for Windows, Mac and Linux that allows users to work on files created in Microsoft Office, including those of Excel.
Here’s how to download LibreOffice on your pc. Connect to the official website, click on the button Download the x version and wait for the download to start.
If you use a Windows PC, once the download is complete, you have to start LibreOffice_xx_Win_x86.msi and finish the setup by clicking twice on Next and then on Install.
Are there any programs to use Excel similar to LibreOffice? The only alternative we can recommend to conclude the guide on how to download Excel for free, is called Calc but, compared to LibreOffice, still has many limitations in compatibility with the most advanced Excel sheets.