1. Microsoft Word Office 365 Student
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Microsoft 365 with Office apps Microsoft 365 Introducing Microsoft Viva, the new employee experience platform designed to help people connect, focus, learn, and thrive at work. Office 365 combines the familiar Microsoft Office desktop suite with cloud-based versions of Microsoft's communications and collaboration services - including Office Web Apps, Office desktop applications, SharePoint, Teams, and Skype for Business to help individuals be productive from virtually anywhere through the Internet. Mar 30, 2021 Office 2019 comes with all the essential apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook) but only includes a smaller scope of features and lacks many of the benefits of a Microsoft 365 subscription. The first is to buy a subscription to Office 365 which lets you use the latest full versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook on your PC as well as on any tablets or smartphones you own.

Office 365 subscribers who use Microsoft Word for the web, will now have a transcription option. The new feature allows you to transcribe recorded audio and video files, as well as live meetings, in the web version of Word.

Interested in giving it a try? Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to use Transcribe in Word. Additionally, find out how it stacks up to the competition.

Step 1: Activate transcription feature

To activate the transcription feature in Microsoft Word, click the arrow next to the blue microphone. It’s on the right-hand side of the main toolbar.

When the dropdown menu appears, select “transcribe.”

This will open the transcribe pane.

Step 2: Upload recorded audio or start a new recording

Microsoft Word allows you to upload and transcribe .mp4, .m4a, .mp3, or .wav files. When you click on “upload file,” a screen will appear allowing you to select an audio file from your computer.

On the other hand, if you want to transcribe a meeting in real-time, click “start recording.” Microsoft Word will then begin to record and distinguish between the speakers.

If you need to take a break but don’t want to end the recording, click the pause button.

When you’re ready to start up again, click the microphone button.

Once your meeting is over or your uploaded audio is ready, select “save and transcribe.” This will save the recording to the transcribed files folder in OneDrive and begin the transcription.

Step 3: Edit the transcription

Microsoft Word Office 365 Student

Once Word has transcribed your audio, it will give you an editable record of the conversation. It won’t be perfect and you will find errors.

To help you clean up the file, Microsoft allows you to access the full recording and time-stamped clips from each speaker.

You can play, pause, and adjust the playback speed of the recording using the controls in the transcribe pane. To listen to one of the clips, click on the timestamp.

If you come across an error, you can edit the transcription by clicking the pencil icon next to the section you want to change. Once you click it, a cursor will appear in the text and you can make changes.

When you finish, click the checkmark to save your corrections. If you don’t want to make any changes, click the “X” button to cancel.

Step 4: Import the transcription

Once you’re done editing, you can import either the entire transcription, or individual sentences, into your Word document.

To import the full transcript, click “add all to document.” If you want to import a single quote, click the plus sign that appears when you hover over a section of the transcript.

After you import the transcription, you can share the Word document as normal, allowing others to access it.

The new feature is pretty simple and straight-forward but it’s only available to Microsoft 365 subscribers. And it wasn’t the only feature recently released. Enhanced voice commands in Word also came out to simplify the process of dictating and editing your documents. The new commands allow you to bold sentences, delete words, and more using your voice.

But how does the transcription service stack up to the competition?

Microsoft Transcription Isn’t the Best Out There

If you’re a subscriber, Microsoft’s 365 transcription feature can help you transcribe audio, but its accuracy falls short. Users will see an average word error rate (WER) of 16.51%. While better than Amazon’s speech recognition technology with an 18.42% WER, it falls behind Rev.com’s automatic (AI generated) transcription service offering a 14.22% WER. Microsoft also doesn’t offer support if you’d prefer to skip the transcript editing altogether, such as Rev.com’s 99% accurate human transcription option.

Rev’s 50,000 human transcriptionists actually train the speech recognition engine to be the best in the world, and no other transcription service or company has that kind of training process. Rev AI, Rev’s speech recognition transcription service, and Zoom Live Captioning service all run off Rev’s world-class speech to text artificial intelligence.

For transcriptions with world-leading accuracy, beating Google, Microsoft, and Amazon speech recognition technology, browse Rev.com’s full suite of transcription services.

Chances are you've been spending more time on your work or personal computer this year due to the pandemic, so you might be in need of some basic tools like Microsoft 365. Formerly known as Office 365, Microsoft 365 is a service that adds more features to the traditional office software. But if you don't want to shell out the money, there are a few ways you can get the service and its popular apps for free.

Microsoft's suite of productivity software -- including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Microsoft Teams , OneDrive and SharePoint -- typically costs $150 for a one-time installation (as Office 365), or between $70 and $100 every year for subscription service access across devices and family members (as Microsoft 365). Microsoft is also planning to release a new standalone version of Microsoft Office for both Windows and Mac -- for a flat price, no subscription required -- at some point later this year.

Use the browser-based version of the Microsoft Word app for free.

Read more:How to download Windows 10 for free, now that Windows 7 is dead

Here are the versions of Office 365, Microsoft 365 and their apps that you can find online for free right now.

If you're a student or a teacher

If you're a student, teacher or faculty member with a school email address, you are likely eligible to get access to Office 365 for free through Microsoft -- including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Microsoft Teams and additional classroom tools.

All you have to do is enter your school email address on this page on Microsoft's website: Get started with Office 365 for free. In many cases, you'll be instantly granted access thanks to an automated verification process. If you attend an institution that needs to be verified, it might take up to a month to confirm your eligibility.

Recent graduates who want to stick with Office 365 can also get Office 365 Personal for $12 for 12 months, with a valid school email address.

If you're anyone else

Anyone can get a one-month free trial of Microsoft 365 to try it out. However, it does require you to enter a credit card, and if you don't cancel before the month is up, you'll be charged $100 for a one-year subscription to Microsoft 365 Family (formerly called Office 365 Home).

The good news is, if you don't need the full suite of Microsoft 365 tools, you can access a number of its apps online for free -- including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Calendar and Skype . Here's how to get them:

• Go to Office.com.
• Login to your Microsoft account (or create one for free). If you already have a Windows, Skype or Xbox login, you have an active Microsoft account.
• Select the app you want to use, and save your work in the cloud with OneDrive.

Read more at TechRepublic:Microsoft 365: A cheat sheet

Is there a catch for the free version?

You may be saying, wait a minute -- if I can get all of those apps for free, why pay for Microsoft 365 in the first place? The reason is that the functionality of these apps is limited: They only run through your web browser, and you can't use them if you aren't online. There are also fewer features than the full Microsoft 365 versions.

Microsoft Word Office 365 Sign In

There are still a number of benefits, however, including the ability to share links to your work and collaborate in real time, similar to G Suite tools. If you're looking for basic versions of each of these apps, the free version should work well for you.

Read more: Windows 10 tips: Secret Start menu, taking screenshots and more