Accessibility statement

Microsoft Office 365

The University has subscribed to Office 365, which allows us to provide staff and students with a free copy of the Microsoft Office suite, which you can use on up to five different devices (please note that for a full version of Office 365 you will need to pay a subscription fee to Microsoft).

The subscription is available to all University staff and students, including associates and distance learners.

You must only install and use this Office 365 subscription on devices and within computer accounts that you alone use. It should not be installed on devices and accounts used by family and friends.

Your subscription will remain valid as long as you are a member of the University of York (and connect online every 7-10 days).

You can continue the subscription after you leave the University if you wish - note that you will need to pay a subscription fee to Microsoft at this point.

Staff using Office 365 should only use it to install Office on a personally owned device (desktop, laptop, smartphone, tablet…) or a University owned smartphone or tablet (providing this is in accordance with your department’s policies on installing software).

You should not use Office 365 on University owned desktops and laptops as these are already entitled to a version of Office under the Campus Agreement: 

What is Office 365?

Office 365 includes all the usual desktop applications, like Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint, though some phone or tablet devices may only be able to run a selection of these.

The Pro Plus version to which we have subscribed does not include OneDrive, but you can sign up for this using a non-University account if you wish - remember, though, that you also have free access to Google Drive for cloud storage, and that you should be careful about where you store data that is sensitive or confidential.

How do I get Office 365?

On your own device, log in to the Microsoft 365 portal using your University email address (eg staff: fred.bloggs@york.ac.uk, students: abc123@york.ac.uk) and password and download a copy to install.

This is a large download, so if your own broadband connection is not particularly fast we recommend you do this on the high-speed campus network, if possible with a wired connection rather than wireless.

Application availability

The range of applications that will be installed on various devices is shown here. Please note:

  • Although Outlook is included for popular devices, we would recommend that you use the Google web interfaces for your email and calendar. This will help you make full use of the integrated functionality provided by the Google Suite.
  • At the moment, only certain Android devices will run the Office Apps. Check the Google Play site to see if your device is supported.
  • Microsoft Teams is not available through this subscription however other institutions can invite you to their sessions if you have the standalone client.
 Office
Mobile		WordExcelPower
Point		One
Note		AccessPublisherOutlook
Windows   ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
macOS   ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓*     ✓
iPhone ✓       ✓      
iPad   ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓      
Android ✓ ✓   ✓ ✓  ✓      

* Can be downloaded from the app store

Note: Under the terms of our licence, Office 365 is not available for Chrome OS devices.

Installing Office 365

Office 365 is downloaded via our Microsoft Portal - you'll need to log in using your University email address (eg staff: fred.bloggs@york.ac.uk, students: abc123@york.ac.uk) and password:

Installation instructions are available: