Microsoft offers a number of Microsoft 365 plans for personal, business, or nonprofit use. Your school may already have one of these plans available. Students and teachers can easily check to see if their school qualifies for a free Microsoft 365 subscription, and they should be able to sign up for the offer themselves, rather than through an administrator.

You can check on Microsoft's site to see if you can get a free Microsoft Office account for students and teachers. If you don't qualify, ask your school administration if they support Microsoft 365 Education.

The free Microsoft Office account for students and teachers includes the latest available desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access, and Publisher (Office 2019 for Windows or Office 2019 for Mac). Plus, you can install these desktop applications on up to five PCs or Macs and up to five mobile devices.

These desktop applications integrate with Office Online, the browser-based version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. The key to Office Online is that you can collaborate on a document with other students or teachers in real time. If you need to work offline, you can save locally and then sync your changes when you reconnect.