looks like these are free.

(surprised)

Paying money for a word processor intended for use on a telephone seems a bit over the top. But then, I went through college on an L. C. Smith manual. Pets walking across the keyboard would have had no effect whatsoever.

In the corporate world I'm seeing more people attending meetings with tablets, so the addition of Microsoft Office products is certainly becoming a necessity for some. You probably won't be composing much on a tablet or phone, but it's good to be able to access or display those files.

Don't get me started about pets getting stuck in manual typewriter keys...

Oh, i wouldn't ever try and create detailed documents on my phone, but, because MS is the standard in the corporate world, when they send a file, I need to be able to, at the very least, read it without having to convert it to something else. If I do return the amended document, I need to send it back with the MS compatibility. I know, there are open source programs, converters, and online versions out there, but, really, they do not have the full compatibility required and formatting gets lost.

this might be enough reason to buy a cheap tablet - one with a keyboard

my small laptop has an 11.6 inch screen, too large to qualify for the free software.

if someone needed to learn to use excel/powerpoint/word, this software on a tablet might do the trick. watch video tutorials on your home desktop, and practice on the tablet.


fwiw, the website says the free software provides the "core experience" ................... the full experience comes with an office 365 subscription

the full experience comes with an office 365 subscription

That's fair enough. The app is only going to be a cut down version of the real thing.

I tried the tablet version and it works fine, although it was a little difficult without a true keyboard. I've yet to try the smartphone version.

Probably helpful if you also have speech-to-text capabilities (many smartphones do).

when they send a file, I need to be able to, at the very least, read it without having to convert it to something else

Hm, right, reading other people's content. On my desktop, .doc files open in TextEdit (the built-in text editor / word processor that I never intentionally use); it seems to be able to approximate the formatting at least as far as displaying tables and similar.

Mobiles tend to be snarky about letting you save files; you can't just drag stuff onto the desktop. Exasperating if, like me, you're in the habit of reading html locally. Does everything behave differently once it's a known filetype?