EDU221FreeMicrosoftOffice

(from an email from Fred B. at UMF 2/16/15)

As a University of Maine Farmington student, you are eligible to download and install Office on your personal computer for home use at no charge and use their online version of Office as well.

So what is the catch? Since this is for home use, the University's ability to link it to your @maine.edu account and provide certain levels of support are restricted. So let me explain what you need to do:

1. On myCampus you will find a link "Download Software" under the "UMF Tools" heading. From there go to the Office 365 link.

2. Next select the "Find out if you're eligible" link under either the Students or Teachers tab (staff, consider yourself teachers) and go through it with your @maine.edu and sign up.

3. Next the tricky part, they will send you an email and you will create a user with Microsoft that is named with your @maine.edu but it is not linked to our system so you will set it up with a new password. Our information security policy requires that you not use your University password for outside accounts so please, use a different password and know that it is not something we can help you reset as it is created with Microsoft. This is confusing but the price is right!

4. After the account is active, go on back and download the version you like or use the online Office. You may also download Office for your iPhone or iPad through the App Store and use this new login you created on that as well.

5. This also comes with OneDrive. Remember, Google is the file sharing and collaboration tool that is supported through the University. If you opt to use OneDrive, the Help Desk may not be able to provide assistance and we ask that official University materials use Google or other locally provided file storage options. Please keep OneDrive usage to personal business only.