Microsoft is testing a new version of its Office app bundle that is free to use, but you’ll have to watch ads. Usability is rather subjective here, because even the most basic features are locked and greyed out.
These free office apps, of which there are only three, will be available only for a limited span. And that too, in a select few markets. Moreover, Microsoft warns that it can discontinue these free Word, Excel, and PowerPoint desktops at nay day of its choosing.
The test pool is also fairly limited, as only accounts that are NOT tied to a recurring Microsoft 365 subscription, or paid tiers such as Home and Student packages, are eligible for testing the ad-supported version.
This won’t be the first time Microsoft is hawking ads in its product. The company won’t even be the only big name to do so, either. Samsung is still notorious for this, and its partnership with Microsoft is deep enough that a $1,300 Galaxy S25 Ultra comes with a bundle of Microsoft apps pre-installed.
I’ll spare it the hurt of being labeled as bloatware, but that’s essentially what it is.
With the free desktop versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, Microsoft is doing the reverse. You’re not being stuffed with ads, but the sheer lack of features will make you wish you never installed these apps in the first place.
What is this thing?
Microsoft really wants to send home the message that you are using a software that should ideally be paid for, and to that end, you will see a persistent ad in a side panel on the right edge of the screen. Moreover, your progress will come to a halt intermittently for ads that are roughly 15-seconds in duration.
Details of this new version of Office apps was first reported by Beebom. Digital Trends was able to test this version, and also spotted a previously unreported Microsoft support document that reveals some crucial details about this new ad-free version.
“The free desktop versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are available in a select number of countries and limited to a small audience that is randomly selected at Microsoft’s discretion,” says the company.
Since we are talking about ads, there is always some privacy concern. Microsoft says it doesn’t share — or use for targeted advertising — details such as user information, contents of their documents, or file metadata. Based on the language preference, ads are pulled from a localized pool.
What is it good for?
The free desktop clients of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are tied to the OneDrive cloud system. So deep is the cloud dependence that there is no offline save functionality. All your documents are saved to a OneDrive container, instead of local storage on your computer.
You can work offline in these apps, but the changes are only saved to the cloud. The progress you make while disconnected from the internet is only saved when you return online and OneDrive sync kicks into action.
Notably, you will see ads whether you are connected to the internet, or not.
Now, Microsoft’s approach to delivering a watered-down experience with an ad-supported product is rather aggressive. In my experience, it’s the most wolfish execution that I’ve seen in a long time.
It feels more like an interactive ad
Not that the expectations were too high from the get-go, but the cuts run too deep. Microsoft says the free versions are only good enough for “basic features that enable light editing and access to existing documents.” And while we’re at it, any of the accessible features can be nixed without any prior notice, warns the company.
Of course, a Microsoft account sign-in is compulsory to access these free desktop apps, since it is all tied to OneDrive cloud storage. Also, these desktop apps are not ideal for serious productivity work, since you only get 5GB of free cloud storage with each Microsoft account, so it’s going to fill up fast.
Help me, dear Lord!
This ad-propped package of free Office apps is a test of patience, in quite the literal sense. An achingly drab product tease, if you will. Let’s start at the very basics of text editing and formatting in Word. Line and paragraph spacing, shading, translation, and border controls are not available. Voice dictation and add-ins for enabling custom commands and new features are also disabled.
The most baffling of them all? Even the screenshot tool is inactive. Microsoft has disabled the in-built thesaurus feature across all three products, so there goes the appeal for logophiles. If you are working with different documents across multiple windows, an ad break in one of them will also bring others to a halt.
As you engage in deep work, or whatever little you are able to accomplish with barely a few core tools available, you need to keep a vigilant eye right above the page. Specifically, look for the message that says, “In the next minute, a video message will play,” or you might run into an unexpected and unskippable ad surprise.
The situation in Excel is not too different. Data analysis, pivot tables, icons, smart art, sparklines, filters, object embedding, signature, mathematical equations, and symbols are all disabled. Even tools that are as basic as Header & Footer are off the table.
Similar is the fate of tools such as page breaks, background, duplicate removal, and data transformation tricks. Even page zoom controls are missing. One can excuse the absentees in Word, but the omissions in Excel are truly astonishing, and not in a good way.
In PowerPoint, fundamental options such as photo album, illustration tools (icon, chart, etc.), slide numbers, background formatting, animations, custom slide shows, reading view, and macros are absent.
An ad-supported demo of absent tools
The only consolation here is that Microsoft has not launched this ad-supported, free bundle of Office apps widely. I hope it never does. For enterprises, it makes sense to side with the security of Microsoft’s products, and in those scenarios, paying a fat premium is justified.
But for regular users of such productivity apps, yanking off basics such as column controls, line spacing, and thesaurus is a poor spectacle. Google’s alternatives such as Docs, Sheets, and Slides are great options, but open-source alternatives such as the Libre Office suite are still fairly popular with loads of functional controls to get work done.
