Office tools for students to use at home

Typically, the teachers give handouts as PDF-files or some the MS Office file formats. (In addition, also videos and sound files can be used, as well as specific professional software files (e.g. CAD) but these are not the subject of this post.) In order to be able to open these typical files the teachers hand out, you will need office software and a software that can read PDF files on your computer.

You will need office software also for making your own study related outputs. At school premises, you can use the Microsoft Office package that includes e.g. Word (word processing), Excel (spreadsheet) and PowerPoint (presentation graphics). During your studies, you are eligible to install Office tools on your own computer. At the moment, the guideline in English is available only to Windows computers; Mac and IPad guidelines are available only in Finnish. The guides will later be availbale in English but until then, feel free to contact the OUAS helpdesk in case you need help.

Alternatively, you can obtain e.g. Libre Office or Apache Open Office without any charges. Both of these packages (NB. also other packages exist!) contain equal office applications as the MS Office: You are able to open files made with the MS Office, and the teachers are able to open your files using the MS Office.

Files that are made with office tools can also be opened with Google Drive; Google Drive requires only a network connection and a browser. You can access Google Apps for Education with your students account. However, not all the styles that are required e.g. in your thesis are available, at least not yet although the tools for word processing, spreadsheets and presentation graphics are already quite extensive. To boot that, Google Drive has a pretty good proof reading and it is highly usable e.g. in group work, as you can share documents among the group members and modify the documents simultaneously. Also it is pretty convenient to have your works saved in the Google cloud, as it is achievable to you if you have just a network connection and a browser. If you wish, you can also register for a regular Google account, unrelated to your studies. A Google account is free of charge. What ever Google services you may decide to start using, be sure to first read the Google Drive terms of service.

Installing the MS Office in your own computer

You can install the MS Office in five different computers (or even compatible mobile devices) through the Microsoft 365 cloud service. To be able to do this, you need to have an active OUAS account. Also, you need to login to the cloud service at least every 30 days: If you are not able to do that, the installation will not let you to create new documents or modify existing documents: However, you will be able to read documents. This is the situation also after your graduation, when your account is deactivated. It is possible to activate the MS Office again by logging in to the cloud service.

How to install Office applications to a Windows computer:

1. First, log in to https://portal.office.com using your students.oamk.fi account.
2. Go to https://portal.office.com/OLS/MySoftware.aspx
3. Then choose the Office software.
4. Now you should choose the language that will be used in the user interface of the Office tools on your computer.
Then click Install.

5. You can also add OneDrive by choosing OneDrive from the left side menu; choose the language and click Install. (Notice that the version has to be the same as in your MS Office.)

6. You should save the file; not run it, unless you are using a high speed Internet connection:

The Office 2013 uses the Click-to-Run technology to install. It is a streaming technology and allows you to use a Click-to-Run product before the complete product is downloaded.

The installation may take an hour or even longer, depending upon the speed of your Internet connection. The recommendation is to have a high speed connection. In case you don’t have a high speed Internet connection, we recommend that you should save the file before installing it. If your connection is slow, you will get a notice saying “Sorry, it looks like you’re on a slow connection, so this might take a while.”

How to install the MS Office to a Mac:

You can install Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote to your Mac.

OneDrive for Business is not available for Macs. To reach your OneDrive, you will need to use it in the web browser (go to https://portal.office.com and choose OneDrive).

Install MS Office:

1. Log in to https://portal.office.com with your students account
2. Go to https://portal.office.com/OLS/MySoftware.aspx
3. Choose Office installation.
4. Save the installation package to your Mac.
5. Install the package as usual. (NB. You will need the administrator rights to be able to do the installation.)

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