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Since the 1980s, Microsoft Word has been dominating all the writing software worldwide. If you get a résumé, document, report, or memo today, chances are it would be in either .doc or .docx format. It’s the de facto internationally accepted way of corporate communication.
Not surprisingly, Microsoft Word is not free. As part of the Office 365 suite, Microsoft Word would cost households $6.99 a month ($9.99 for a whole family) or $12.50 a month per business user. You can also just buy a standalone version of Microsoft Word outright for $139.99. But if you just need to edit an occasional document or use the basic formatting features, you’d rather not spend anything.
Is there a free version of Microsoft Word for Mac? Is there a free version of Office for Mac? Let’s answer these and more questions relating to how you can get Microsoft Word for Mac free and also suggest some better alternatives altogether.
Alternative to MS Word on Mac
Collabio Spaces is the best app to replace Microsoft Word with. Write and co-edit your documents offline.
Can I Download Microsoft Word For Free On Mac?
When someone sends you a .docx file and you don’t have Microsoft Word for Mac installed, what do you do? You can, of course, open the file with Quick Look or Preview, but the styling might be off and you wouldn’t be able to edit it.
If you decide to look up something like “Microsoft Word free download” online, you’ll stumble upon dozens of YouTube tutorials and written guides on how you can get free Microsoft Word by downloading a trial version and using a code-cracking app on it to get the license key for it. Not only this is illegal, you also risk downloading all kinds of malware to your Mac.
Luckily, there are a few other ways you can get Microsoft Word free.
Use MS Word online
Is Microsoft Word for Mac free? No. Is Microsoft Word online, free? Yes! It’s not well-known, but you can use Word on the web at no cost. All you need is a free Microsoft account. The catch is that the MS Word online version is not as advanced as its desktop counterpart, but it’s still good enough for all the basic work with documents and for writing something on your own.
Here’s how to get Microsoft Word online for free:
Visit the MS Word online page
Click “Sign up for free”
Create your account
Choose to start a new document or drag and drop an existing one right onto the web app
Get a free Microsoft Office 365 trial
In case you have a complex project coming up that requires more of the features not available in MS Word online, you can access everything that the regular Microsoft Word has to offer by subscribing for a free Microsoft Word trial via Microsoft Office 365. You get one month to finish your project and you can use all the apps in MS Office 365, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, etc.
Here’s how to sign up for the Microsoft Word free trial:
Visit the Microsoft 365 page
Click “Try 1 month free”
Sign in with your free Microsoft account or register a new one
Get your Microsoft Word free download
Try free alternatives to Microsoft Word
Is Microsoft Office For Mac Free
If you need to use Microsoft Word for an extended period of time, and a one-month trial won’t cut it, you can try to actually substitute for another similar free app that’s fully compatible with Microsoft Word.
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Google Docs, as part of G Suite, has improved greatly over the years and now supports custom styles, tables, in-line images, and more. Although it’s an online app, it feels native and can both edit and export .docx while keeping all the formatting intact.
LibreOffice (also known as OpenOffice) is another suite of text-editing apps available for free to anyone. Its Microsoft Word alternative is called LibreOffice Writer, which has many desktop publishing compatibilities of its paid competitor and is also completely compatible with it.
Use Microsoft Word with iPad
A surprisingly lesser known trick to get a full working version of Microsoft Word free is to load it on your iPad. Yes, the iPad version of Microsoft Word doesn’t cost anything and, with the release of iPads that feature Bluetooth keyboard support, it’s just as capable as its macOS counterpart.
Embrace third-party Mac apps
While Microsoft Word dominance is still apparent, it’s hardly the best app for all the word-processing jobs we need to do today. With the release of Mac App Store, we’ve seen a great proliferation of niche text editors, journals, desktop publishers, and more — every one of which is best at solving a specific problem.
Let’s look at a few of the best apps for working with words out there today.
Collabio Spaces is a text editor with unique ad-hoc collaboration features. This app goes beyond creating and formatting text (although you can do it too, obviously). Collabio turns your device into a server and transmits your document to other people. All you have to do is share a password with them and start co-editing in real time, without uploading your document to a cloud.
Ulysses is one of the most popular writing apps of recent years. From small notes to manuscripts, its distraction-free environment just lets you get things done. The app has a built-in support for Markdown as well as grammar and style checkers. When you’re done, simply export your results as a PDF or publish to WordPress or Medium directly.
Focused is another app for writing purists that does everything to get you concentrated on the words that flow from your keyboard. The app supports beautiful typography, various themes suitable for different times of day as well as ambient soundtracks to make it so you fully immerse in your environment.
MarsEdit allows you to transport your complete blogging setup offline. You can edit HTML, rich text, or plain text to write and design blog posts with images, infographics, and videos with zero internet connection. Then upload your new blog post on schedule to the blog when you’re back online. As MarsEdit saves everything as you go on your Mac, you’ll never lose any data because of WiFi troubles.
Manuscripts empowers you to take on even the most complex writing projects possible: research papers, textbooks, novels, screenplays, etc. The app supports a variety of formats, multi-level outlines, templates, tables, graphs, LaTex, document versioning, and citation editing. Instead of trying to adjust Microsoft Word to your needs, let Manuscripts adjust to you.
Diarly enables you to think freely. The app encourages your daily journaling practice and makes the writing habit easy and beautiful. You can organize your notes, add lists, calendar events, sync across devices, and more. Diarly also takes your security seriously, encrypting all the entries on the fly.
So is Microsoft Word for Mac free? Not exactly. But you can get a lot of the same features from MS Word online, sign up for the Microsoft Word free trial, take a look at Google Docs or LibreOffice Writer, and use Microsoft Word free on iPad. Even better, give a wealth of more specialized apps a try. Sketch notes in Ulysses, concentrate on your writing in Focused, finish your blog post in MarsEdit, create your life’s work in Manuscripts, and keep a journal with Diarly.
Best of all, Collabio Spaces, Ulysses, Focused, MarsEdit, Manuscripts, and Diarly are available to you absolutely free with a seven-day trial of Setapp, a platform with 200+ outstanding apps for your Mac. Try every single one today and discover the latest and greatest feats of Mac engineering at no cost.
Most users looking for a Mac office suite will probably have one option in mind—Microsoft Office. It’s still one of the best office suites out there, regardless of the platform, but there are other options available that you might not have considered (or even be aware of) for macOS.
Choosing the best office suite for Mac will depend on your budget, but there are plenty of free office suites for Mac that you can install without cost. To help you, here’s a look at eight of the best free Mac office suites available to install or use today.
Also, feel free to check out our YouTube channel from our sister site that goes through all the office suite options mentioned below in a quick video.
Apple iWork
After Microsoft Office, the next and best office suite for Mac users to immediately start using is the Apple iWork suite. Originally a paid-for product, the three Apple iWork office apps have been freely available for Mac devices since 2013.
Pages is a Word processor, with ready-made templates for common documents like letters available, as well as the ability to insert tables, charts, images, and other objects. Apple also has a basic spreadsheet app called Numbers that supports multiple sheets and, like Pages, comes with pre-made templates.
Finally, Keynote works as a PowerPoint replacement, with similar features like transitions and animations included. You can download all three iWork apps from the App Store.
Google Docs (Docs/Sheets/Slides)
While iCloud offers iWork apps online, it isn’t the best office suite for Mac. If you want Microsoft Office features online without paying for Office 365, then you’ll need to give try the Google Docs suite.
Freely available for Google account users, the Google Docs suite comes in a package of three (four if you count Google Forms, too). Docs is a word processor, Sheets is a spreadsheet tool, while Slides is a presentation tool to rival PowerPoint and Apple Keynote.
Google Docs is well-equipped with many of the features you’d expect to see in a fully-fledged Office alternative, along with extensive collaboration features that allow you to share and edit documents in real-time with others.
LibreOffice
Few open-source projects have the size and polish to compete against the billion-dollar Microsoft Office suite like LibreOffice. Thanks to a community of volunteers helping to build it, LibreOffice has grown into one of the best office suites available for Mac.
This fork of the once-popular OpenOffice has products to match the typical Microsoft Office collection, with a word processor, spreadsheet tool, presentation designer, and database manager. It also takes things two steps further, with a vector graphics design tool and formulae designer for mathematicians.
Best of all, LibreOffice supports Office file formats such as DOC and DOCX perfectly. LibreOffice is a fully-fledged replacement with many similar features compared to Microsoft Office, plus a few extras to sink your teeth into.
FreeOffice
As the name suggests, FreeOffice is a free Office suite available for Mac, Linux, and Windows users. Like other free Office alternatives, it focuses on the big three Office products, with Excel (PlanMaker), PowerPoint (Presentations) and Word (TextMaker) style products.
If you want an Office-like experience, FreeOffice gives it. It looks a lot like its Microsoft counterpart, with a ribbon bar interface, basic features, and support for common Office file formats like DOCX.
Some features, such as mail merge and high-quality spell checking, require a paid-for upgrade to the SoftMaker Office suite. If that’s a deal-breaker, look elsewhere.
Calligra
Another free and open-source Office replacement is the KDE-created Calligra suite. Originally designed for Linux users, Calligra is a cross-platform office suite for macOS, Linux, and Windows PCs. To install it on Mac, you’ll need the Homebrew package manager installed first.
There are no less than ten Calligra apps for you to try, from a standard word processor (Words) and spreadsheet tool (Sheets) to more specialist apps, including a mind mapping tool (Braindump).
We won’t pretend that Calligra is the most polished Mac office suite—it isn’t. What it is, however, is functional, well-rounded and free, with more built-in tools than some of its more appealing (and costly) competitors.
Apache OpenOffice
Apache OpenOffice is the spiritual successor to the previously popular (but now discontinued) OpenOffice.org suite. It shares a common code base to LibreOffice, with similar features, although some important differences exist between them.
Unfortunately, the biggest difference is active development. LibreOffice has a vibrant community behind it, while things are a little slower for Apache OpenOffice, with releases happening roughly once-a-year. In recent years, those have largely focused on bug fixes, rather than significant new features or upgrades.
There are better Mac office suites out there, but if you want a solid, old-school experience on Mac, Apache OpenOffice could be the option for you.
Microsoft Office Free Download Mac
WPS Office Free
Office Download For Mac Free
As a free version of the paid-for WPS Office, WPS Office Free acts as a freemium, ad-supported taster for Mac users. That isn’t a criticism—WPS Office Free is still a good Mac office suite in its own right.
WPS Office looks like it was built with Mac in mind with an appealing and modern interface that blows some of its older competitors like LibreOffice out of the water. Like iWork and FreeOffice, WPS Office Free targets the Microsoft Office market with presentation, word processing, and spreadsheet creation tools.
It supports Office file formats, as well as support for PDF editing and creation. You can download WPS Office Free from the App Store or from the WPS Office website.
Dropbox Paper
Dropbox Paper is a quick document collaboration and editing tool built-in to the Dropbox cloud storage interface. It’s also the only app on this list that isn’t a full-fledged Office replacement, but Dropbox Paper is still a worthy and honourable mention.
Is Microsoft Office Free For Mac M1
You can use Paper to build more unusual types of documents for project planning, note taking, portfolio building, and more. Like Google Docs, you can also collaborate in real-time with other Dropbox Paper users.
Free Microsoft For Mac Downloads
It might not be the Word replacement you’re after, but if you have a Dropbox account already, give it a try.
Choosing The Best Office Suite For Mac
If you want the best Office suite for Mac, you don’t need to pay. Microsoft Office is still a great Mac office suite, but it isn’t essential—you can create documents on macOS for free without it using Apple iWork or one of the other free or open-source alternatives we’ve mentioned.
Is Microsoft Office 365 Free For Mac
Whether it’s Google Docs or Microsoft Office itself, let us know your favorite Mac office suite in the comments below.