Microsoft Office for Full-Time Staff/Faculty and Students (Personal Use)

Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) is a suite of productivity applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, and more. All Emerson College students, faculty, and staff can access Microsoft 365 apps online through a web browser. Full-time employees, faculty, and students can also download and install the complete Office suite on personal devices for free.

• Full-time students, faculty, and staff: Access to online apps and the ability to download and install the complete Office suite on up to 5 PCs or Macs, 5 tablets, and 5 smartphones.
• Affiliated Faculty and Temporary Staff: Access to the online versions of Microsoft 365 apps. For document creation, storage, and collaboration, the College has standardized on Google Drive, and all Google Workspace apps (Docs, Sheets, Forms, etc.) are available to every community member.

Signing In to Microsoft 365 Online

1. Open a web browser (Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, etc.) and visit m365.cloud.microsoft/apps.
2. Enter your Emerson email address (e.g., firstname_lastname@emerson.edu) and click Next.
3. If prompted, select Work or school account (created by your IT department).
4. Enter your Emerson password and click Sign in.
5. Complete the Duo two-factor authentication prompt. (For help with Duo, see Setting Up and Using Duo for Two-Factor Authentication.)
6. When Duo asks "Is this your device?", click Yes, this is my device if you are on a personal computer. Click No, other people use this device if you are on a shared or public computer.
7. You will be signed in to the Microsoft 365 Apps page, where you can open Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, Teams, Clipchamp, and more directly in your browser.

Downloading and Installing Office Apps

1. Sign in to Microsoft 365 by following the steps above.
2. In the top-right corner of the Apps page, click the blue Install apps button.
3. Select Microsoft 365 apps from the dropdown to download Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more. The installer package will begin downloading automatically.
4. Once the download is complete, open the installer from your Downloads folder and follow the on-screen instructions to install.

Alternate Sign-In Method

If you visit office.com/login instead, you will be brought to a Microsoft Copilot chatbot screen after signing in. To get to the Apps page from there:

1. In the bottom-left corner of the screen, click Apps.
2. Click All Apps to view the full list of available Microsoft 365 applications.
3. From here, you can open any app online or click the Install apps button in the top-right corner to download the desktop versions.

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Who can download and install the Office apps?
2. How many devices can I install Office on?
3. I'm a new student and my license isn't working. What do I do?
4. I had a previous version of Office installed. What should I do?
5. What is the Copilot screen I see when I go to office.com?
6. What about Google Drive and Google Docs?

Who can download and install the Office apps?

Full-time Emerson College employees, faculty, and all students can download and install the complete Microsoft 365 suite on their personal devices for free. Affiliated faculty and temp staff can use the online versions of all apps at m365.cloud.microsoft/apps. All community members also have access to Google Drive and Google Workspace apps for document creation, storage, and collaboration.

How many devices can I install Office on?

You can install Microsoft 365 on up to 5 PCs or Macs, 5 tablets, and 5 smartphones.

I had a previous version of Office installed. What should I do?

If you previously had a personal or other institutional version of Microsoft Office, you may need to remove old license files before your Emerson license can activate. This is most common on Macs.

What is the Copilot screen I see when I go to office.com?

Microsoft has updated office.com to open with their Copilot AI assistant by default. Emerson College does not support Microsoft Copilot. Our standard AI tool is Google Gemini. To get to your Office apps from the Copilot screen, click Apps in the bottom-left corner, then All Apps. For the most direct experience, we recommend going to m365.cloud.microsoft/apps instead.

What about Google Drive and Google Docs?

Emerson College has standardized on Google Drive for file storage and collaboration. Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and other Google Workspace apps are available to all community members — including affiliated faculty and temp staff — at no cost. If you don't need the desktop Microsoft Office apps, Google Workspace may already have everything you need. For more information, visit Getting Started with Google Drive at Emerson.