Microsoft Office, initially launched in 1988 by Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, has evolved into a crucial tool for professionals worldwide, facilitating tasks such as creating documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. This suite, now predominantly available through a subscription service called Microsoft 365, offers tools that can significantly boost productivity and efficiency, leading to promising careers in various sectors.

What is Microsoft Office?

Microsoft Office is a bundled software suite developed by the Microsoft Corporation. Office provides services and applications that allow people to perform everyday or high-level tasks at home, in the workplace, or for running a business. Microsoft Office was created by Microsoft CEO and software developer Bill Gates in 1988 and featured three applications: Word, PowerPoint, and Excel to facilitate creating documents, presentations, and spreadsheets on Windows PCs for work, school, or personal use. Since then, users have been able to use these tools on not only Microsoft-compatible computers but also Apple Macs.

Over the next few decades, Microsoft Office would grow to include OneNote for note-taking, Outlook for email service and coordination, and OneDrive for cloud-based storage that allows users to collaborate with others through syncing files. Teams, a video conferencing platform, facilitates online meetings or connecting with far-away friends and relatives.

Microsoft Office is also available as Microsoft 365, a subscription version of Office that provides the same core desktop applications along with additional apps and online services for secure cloud storage, communication, and collaboration.

What Can You Do with Microsoft Office?

Microsoft Office provides features and tools that allow users to organize tasks ranging from creating presentations with PowerPoint, analyzing and visualizing data using Excel, communicating through email with Outlook, or writing documents using Word. These are a few examples of programs and features that have made Office an essential tool for professionals worldwide.

Microsoft PowerPoint has become the industry-standard for creating presentations and allows users to customize projects by designing layouts, creating tables and charts, modifying text, or using images, and the ability to insert shapes, animations, and layered objects. Excel allows users to create formulas, PivotTables, and macros, along with other essential techniques, including calculations, basic functions, charts, formatting, and printing. Outlook can handle email functions as well as organizing calendars, assembling contact lists, managing junk email, configuring calendar settings, and creating appointments and events.

Finally, Microsoft Word is the most widely used word-processing application worldwide and is likely the most used software overall. Word offers a trove of features waiting to be unlocked that help users create, edit, and produce a variety of document types. Through training, students will learn shortcuts, tips, and techniques for optimizing Word for professional or personal use. Training includes lessons with formatting techniques, creating hyperlinks, setting bookmarks, or inserting images, video, and audio.

How Do You Download/Get Microsoft Office? How Much Does it Cost?

Microsoft Office is obtainable through several methods, including individual applications, suites, channels, and licensing for personal use, families, work, or education. You can buy or subscribe to the Microsoft 365 suite of applications. You can purchase Microsoft 365 in various packages, including the family plan for $99.99 for a year or $9.99 monthly and the Personal plan for $69.99 yearly or a month for $6.99 monthly. Each option includes PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams.

These offers include free trials for 365 that give users access to one TB of cloud storage per person, allowing individuals to download and install Office apps on multiple PCs, Macs, tablets, or smartphones. It’s important to note that the credit card used to participate in this free trial is charged after the trial period ends for the family plan cost of $99.99 per year. However, you can cancel at any time to end future charges.

What Are the Benefits of Learning Microsoft Office?

Microsoft Office not only serves as a staple in workplaces throughout the world but also helps people with basic household functions, including logging bills or collecting recipes. Microsoft Office offers applications like Word, PowerPoint, Publisher, Outlook, OneNote, and Excel for performing tasks with word processing, presentations, email communication, desktop publishing, note-taking, or fundamental data analysis. Anyone from a corporate office to a freelance agency to an academic institution uses Microsoft Office suites, from essential workplace organizing to production design functions. This means that training in Microsoft Office applications can deliver the skills required for designing, creating, editing, saving, printing, or uploading documents necessary for creating and maintaining an efficient working environment.

Microsoft Office is a suite of software applications used for word processing and creating spreadsheets, databases, and an assortment of media. These applications can handle a variety of office functions, including creating documents, building databases, organizing spreadsheets, and designing promotional material. This includes Microsoft Word for word processing, Excel for spreadsheet functions like charts and graphs, Access for creating and maintaining databases, and PowerPoint for professional-looking presentations. Training to optimize skills with Microsoft Office can provide you with the core skills needed to help with finding the right job.

Read more about why you should learn Microsoft Office.

Microsoft Office Careers

While knowledge of Microsoft Office alone may not be enough to establish a career, skills with several Office applications and experience in a specific profession could be combined to create career opportunities.

Training in Microsoft Office can help individuals obtain work in finance, business, technology, education, and several other industries. Knowledge is a vital ingredient for any computer-related job. Microsoft Office is how professionals communicate and operate around the world. Skills with Word, PowerPoint, Publisher, Outlook, OneNote, and Excel provide everyday tools for getting work done everywhere. Learning Microsoft Office offers valuable skills for anyone working in an office or corporate setting and is crucial for computer literacy.

Microsoft Office is one of the core skills needed for securing employment by coordinating functions essential for any working environment. Skills with Microsoft Office, including Excel and Access, can help individuals find work, such as a Business Analyst, which can bring in an average income of around $82,000 a year in the United States.

How to Learn Microsoft Office

Learning to optimize Microsoft Office applications can improve your skills with tools used in the workplace. With this in mind, learning through in-person or live online Microsoft Office courses could enhance your opportunities for advancement in your desired field. Noble Desktop provides training from expert instructors in real-time, who offer guidance and feedback for students eager to improve skills with innovative tools like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint that many take for granted due to familiarity from everyday use. These courses include in-person classroom training that allows participants to interact with instructors or other students, which is a benefit that can extend beyond the classroom. There are also live online Microsoft classes that provide essentially the same level of education you would get from sitting inside a classroom without having to leave the comforts of home.

Noble Desktop provides other options for learning Microsoft Office applications, including opportunities for on-demand learning. Unlike live online courses, on-demand classes allow students to learn at their own pace and on their own time, avoiding the stress of conflict with work or other commitments. The option for on-demand Microsoft Office training provides beginning or advanced students with courses from a variety of education providers, including Noble Desktop and others. Classes range from Udemy’s Ultimate Microsoft Office to Excel, Word, PowerPoint & Access, which provides comprehensive training in the Microsoft Office business suites. Another option is Skillshare’s Microsoft PowerPoint: Presentation Design and Animation Masterclass course, which trains students on how to use PowerPoint for creating presentations with advanced design and animation.

While many people would love the opportunity to understand Microsoft Office applications, busy work schedules, and other obligations may not allow for the privilege of enrolling in a course. However, there is an option for individuals interested in picking up new skills with Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office tools. Noble Desktop offers free tutorials, YouTube instructional videos, seminars, and blog posts. Interested individuals can find training options that fit their chosen time, including the free Excel Classes Online or a PowerPoint Presentation Design seminar. Noble Desktop also offers an Excel YouTube channel with more than 70 short video clips or previously recorded training lectures for courses like PowerPoint Design.

Read the full guide on how to learn Microsoft Office.

A Brief History of Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is a software bundle that provides services and applications that allow people to perform tasks at home, in the workplace, or running a business. Created in 1988, Microsoft Office featured Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for creating documents, presentations, and spreadsheets on Windows PCs. Today Office is available through Microsoft 365, a subscription service that provides these applications for use in the workplace, school, small businesses, or at home for personal use. Microsoft offers 365 in a variety of packages for use on desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

Comparable Applications

Because Microsoft Office is considered the industry-standard tool for developing workplace documents, designing professional-looking presentations, or creating spreadsheets, most people working with Office will usually stick with other Microsoft products out of convenience or the ability to integrate among those applications. However, the cost of licensing Microsoft Office could be prohibitive for many people. Considering this, there are alternatives to many of Microsoft’s products and services that are free or less expensive and usually compatible with Office applications.

Among Google Docs' most significant assets are that it allows for seamless document sharing, which is a convenient benefit for any working environment requiring collaboration and rapid turnaround for creating content. For example, Google Docs is an online word processing tool that is a popular alternative to Microsoft Word and is available free as part of the web-based Google Docs Editors suite. Google Docs also provides Smart Compose, which helps avoid spelling and grammatical errors with text. Another alternative to Word would be Apple’s Pages, a word processing application included with most Apple devices. Because Pages is readily available on iPhones, iPads, and Macs, people can write about anything from anywhere, composing documents, designing illustrations, or collaborating with coworkers or friends in real time. With Pages, users can customize fonts, personalize text styles, or add graphics. Plus, Pages allows users to save documents as Word files, or Word documents can be imported into or edited within Pages.

Those interested in finding a spreadsheet application other than Excel have the option of Google Sheets, an online spreadsheet program that, like Google Docs, is also free as part of Google Docs Editors. Like Excel, Google Sheets has features for calculation and formulas. Google Sheets also allows for more robust collaboration with permission granted by a document’s owner that permits reading or editing by others, which provides convenience in the workplace for several people to be able to work on content simultaneously. Another alternative to Excel would be Smartsheet, which can best be described as a work project software presented in a spreadsheet format. Smartsheet facilitates consistency, collaboration, accessibility, and integration for managing workplace projects.

Finally, if a person is looking for a presentation tool comparable to PowerPoint, Google Slides is another free program available through Google Docs Editors. Google Slides allows users to create, edit, and present online presentations in real-time using any number of devices and collaborate with associates to design and develop presentations. With Google Slides, users can edit PowerPoint presentations online without needing to convert them, adding Slides features such as comments, action items, and Smart Compose.

Learn Microsoft Office with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

If you’re looking to enhance your skills in using Microsoft Office, Noble Desktop has courses that provide training for a better understanding of Office applications. This includes in-person classes available in New York City and live online courses in various timeframes and costs.

Noble Desktop offers in-person and live online Microsoft Office classes that provide hands-on training from expert instructors. Courses offered include Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Project, and Outlook training available inside a classroom or through virtual learning.

Microsoft Office courses include the Excel Bootcamp, training on functions, formulas, PivotTables, and macros, along with time-saving techniques. Excel courses offer training from the fundamental level up through advanced classes available in various durations, with tuition ranging from $229 to $549.

Students can also enroll in the PowerPoint Bootcamp to learn how to design everything from slides for multimedia presentations to customizing text or using images, shapes, animation, layered objects, and creating tables and charts. Noble Desktop also offers the PowerPoint Level I course that teaches individuals fundamentals, such as how to apply images and SmartArt or insert tables and graphs for designing professional-looking presentations.

Key Takeaways

• Microsoft Office first debuted in 1988. Since its creation, the desktop tool has become the most widely used software application for creating and maintaining documents, spreadsheets, and presentations for work, school, and personal use.
• These days, Microsoft Office is mainly available through Microsoft 365, a subscription service that provides online or cloud access.
• Training in Microsoft Office applications can contribute to finding careers in business, finance, and education. 
• Suppose you need an alternative to Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. These applications can perform many of the same tasks as the Office applications with more of an emphasis on collaboration. In that case, you may consider working with Google Docs Editors, which includes Google Docs for word processing, Google Sheets for working with spreadsheets, and Google Slides for professional-looking presentations.