UC Davis students now have free access to Microsoft's Office 365, including familiar applications such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus access to the useful storage and file-sharing services available through OneDrive.

On Sept. 26, Information and Educational Technology (IET) started offering elements of the Office 365 package to all undergraduate and graduate students. Use of the services is optional, and students will continue to use DavisMail (Gmail) for email and calendaring.

Students may now:

• Download a subscription to the latest Microsoft Office suite on up to five computers;
• Use the Office Mobile application for iPhone, iPad, and Android phones (not available for Android tablets) on up to five mobile devices;
• Use up to 1 terabyte of storage in OneDrive with web applications for Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

The free use should save students money on popular software, plus the access to OneDrive will help them create and share information, including huge files, from any place with Internet access.

Students may use the tools under this agreement for as long as they are classified as students at UC Davis.

Students can activate and access their free account at office.ucdavis.edu; the site offers download instructions once the account is active. A help article in the IT knowledge base also provides step-by-step instructions.

Students who already have a personal Office 365 account with an "@ucdavis.edu" email address sign-on should not encounter a conflict with their new UC Davis-provided Office 365 account.

Please send questions to the IT Express Service Desk at 530-754-4357 or ithelp@ucdavis.edu.