Faculty and staff at Cornell University are eligible for several different options for Microsoft Office. Some of these options are available at no cost, while others require payment of a licensing fee. Some of these programs only cover computers owned by Cornell University, while others apply to computers that are the personal property of employees.

If you are a student, please see our Microsoft Office Licensing for Students article.

Cornell-Provided Services (No Fee)

Office 365 ProPlus

• Applies to: Personally- and Cornell-owned computers
• License: Contingent on employment by Cornell University
• Website: Office 365 ProPlus for Faculty and Staff

Current faculty and staff have access to the full Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus suite of desktop applications on Cornell-owned and/or personally-owned computers (up to five computers can be registered by an employee at a time). These include for Windows and Mac: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Skype. For Windows, Access, Publisher, and InfoPath are also included. Please check with your local IT support team before installing this version onto a Cornell-owned computer.

Microsoft Office Professional Plus (Volume-License edition)

• Applies to: Cornell-owned computers only
• License: Renews centrally every 3 years
• Website: Microsoft Office Site License

The Microsoft Campus Site License provides the volume-licensed edition of Microsoft Office Professional plus to all Windows and Mac computers owned by Cornell University. We recommend that you work with your local IT support team to install this software. This license includes for Windows and Mac: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Skype. For Windows, Access, Publisher, and InfoPath are also included.

Office 365 Productivity Bundle

• Applies to: Cornell- and personally-owned devices (cloud service)
• License: Contingent on employment by Cornell University
• Website: Office 365 Productivity Bundle

Cornell faculty and staff have access to a suite of Office 365 online productivity tools for cloud-based access and collaboration. These services include: SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Office Online, Yammer, and Delve. Access to these services is available for as long as an individual remains a Cornell employee.

Google Workspace for Education

• Applies to: Cornell- and personally-owned devices (cloud service)
• License: Contingent on employment at Cornell University
• Website: Google Workspace

To support collaboration with Cornell students and colleagues at other institutions, Cornell employees may obtain Google Workspace accounts. This service provides access to Google Docs, which can upload, read, and edit files created in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Files can also be downloaded in Microsoft-compatible formats.

Please note that Microsoft 365 remains the only fully-supported email and calendar client for faculty and staff.

Cornell-Provided Services (Fee-based)

Microsoft Academic Select Plus (Including Visio and Project)

• Applies to: Cornell-owned devices only
• License: Perpetual
• Website: Microsoft Academic Select Plus

Microsoft Academic Select is a software purchasing agreement that provides Cornell staff and faculty access to Microsoft Office components that are not covered by the Campus Site License. This includes Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio. Academic Select is managed through a preferred third-party reseller, Dell. For more information, please see our Microsoft Academic Select Plus article.

Microsoft-Provided Services (No Fee)

Microsoft Azure Dev Tools for Teaching

• License: Faculty and staff who have instructional roles
• Website: Azure Dev Tools for Teaching

Instructors at Cornell can access a suite of education-focused Microsoft development tools. Products available through this service include Visual Studio, Project, Visio, and Windows 10 Education Edition. This service is provided by Microsoft. Products acquired through this service may only be used for instructional purposes. (For administrative use, please instead purchase licenses via Academic Select Plus.)

Other No-Fee Options

There are other alternatives to Microsoft Office that allow the ability to read, edit, and create documents in Microsoft Office formats. Please note that the following options are listed as a courtesy to the Cornell community, and that Cornell does not provide support for them.

• Google Drive (external link)
• LibreOffice (external link)
• Apache OpenOffice (external link)