Get MS Office programs for life — plus the training to learn to use them effectively, all for $39.99

TL;DR: AS of May 22, you can score a lifetime license to Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2021 for Windows and a Microsoft Training Bundle(opens in a new tab) for just $39.99 — that's 83% in savings based on a $239.99 MSRP.

Software subscriptions can add up. Instead of paying every month for Word, Excel, and the rest of Microsoft Office, you could just pay once and have it for life. Skip the subscription and get a lifetime license to Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2021 for Windows(opens in a new tab) for only $39.99. It also comes with a free Microsoft Training Bundle that shows you basic and advanced functions in your new software. 

Whether you just got a new computer or want to upgrade your old one, this Microsoft Office lifetime license gives you a versatile toolkit for professional or personal use. Load your computer up with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, Publisher, Access, and Skype for Business. Plus, when you redeem your codes, they’ll connect to your Microsoft account and update automatically. 

This software license lets you use the whole Office suite at home or at work(opens in a new tab) on your Windows PC. Write a new résumé for your job search or break down your budget in Excel. Create a slide deck for work and share it over Teams, or get your personal inbox under control with Outlook. Need to remind yourself to grab milk on the way home? Throw your reminders into OneNote. If you’re running a meeting, create pro-quality printables in Publisher. Keep all your important digital copies of documents organized in your Access database. 

The Office suite is full of versatile apps, so how you use them is up to you. If you need some help mastering them, check out the courses in the Microsoft Training Bundle. Each course is taught by a professional from LearningWhilePracticing and covers beginner and advanced skills in Word, Access, PowerPoint, and especially Excel. Find out how to access document templates in Word, create database solutions in Access, and craft quality presentations in PowerPoint. 

Check out this essential productivity software and the training to use it, all for a low price.

For a limited time, get a lifetime license to Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2021 for Windows and a free Microsoft Training Bundl(opens in a new tab)e all for $39.99 (reg. $239). 

Prices subject to change.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 announced, but will they continue the 10-year support plan for MSFS 2020?

In a nutshell: Microsoft has announced a new version of Flight Simulator as a follow-up to its widely popular 2020 release. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, developed by Asobo Studio, is expected to include additional flying activities, such as hot air balloons, aerial firefighting, and more. Flight Sim 2024 launches on Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows 10/11, and Steam next year.

Microsoft claims Flight Simulator 2024 will be "the most sophisticated, immersive, and awe-inspiring flight simulator of all time," utilizing the latest simulation, cloud, and machine learning technologies. It will be a standalone sequel but supports all currently-available aircraft and airports from Flight Sim 2020. Most add-ons from the 2020 game will also function in Flight Sim 2024, barring "very few exceptions."

Flight Simulator 2024 will include a stunning range of careers. Players will find even more activities and types of flying to master in the latest edition. New MSFS 2024 careers and activities include:

It isn't immediately clear whether Asobo has fleshed out all these "careers" with enough gameplay options. For example, some will inherently have more to offer, like aerial firefighting or search and rescue. Conversely, hot-air balloon trips seem relatively limited by nature.

Those worried that Microsoft might abandon MSFS 2020 once the follow-up launches should be happy to hear it will continue to support 2020 after Flight Sim 2024 launches. The older title will continue receiving Aircraft and Avionics, Core Sim, City, and World Updates.

The announcement of Flight Sim 2024 came as a bit of a surprise, as Microsoft had announced plans to support the current version for up to a decade after its release. As part of those plans, the company has many new features and add-ons in the pipeline for the 2020 game, including a 'Dune' expansion that will be rolled out on November 3 alongside the release of Dune: Part 2.

That said, it will be interesting to see whether Microsoft will stick to its 10-year plan for Flight Sim 2020 following Flight Sim 2024's release.

Best Word online course of 2023

The best Word online courses provide a simple way to learn and develop your skills with Microsoft Word.

Microsoft Office is the quintessential business tool. Still, when it comes to many of its commonly used components, like Excel and Word, many of us are self-taught. By not learning them under the guidance of an expert, we miss out on many of the nested productivity tools in these software. 

Just like Excel, Microsoft Word too encapsulates a lot of hidden potential behind its deceptively simple looking interface. Once you master Word’s advanced tools you can make your documents look more elegant and professional, using options that aren’t immediately apparent from a casual perusal of its menus. 

In this guide, we’ll roundup some of the best Microsoft Word courses that you can use to enhance your word processing skills, regardless as to whether you're a complete beginner or an advanced user. 

We've also featured the best online learning platforms.

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

1. Microsoft Word training

Best Word course for new users

For absolute beginners

Applicable to several versions

Covers the most used features

If you are an absolute green horn to word processing, then let Microsoft handhold you through the basics. The makers of the software have a nice free 'Introductory training to Word', which is as good a starting point as any. The training is made of short video demonstrations and screencasts, which are followed by several textual step-by-step tutorials that are nicely illustrated to help you get working knowledge with the word processor. 

The good thing about the training is that since its covers the absolute basics, most of its lessons are applicable to various versions of the software, going from the Microsoft 365 to Word 2019, and Word 2016. Some lessons are applicable to even older versions such as Word 2013, Word 2010 and even Word 2007. 

While most of the lessons are divided on specific tasks, such as formatting text and laying out pages, there’s also a special section titled “Use Word for school“ that covers several Word techniques that’ll be of help in an educational setting.

2. Sali Kaceli

Best Word course for busy people

Based on Word 2016

Covers a lot of ground

Kaceli Technology Simplified offers a lot of video tutorials on Microsoft Office and its various components. However, its "Learn Word in 30 minutes" course is available for free on YouTube and does a nice job of familiarizing you with the software’s most notable functions. 

The lecture is based on Word 2016 though you can follow through much of it on other versions of the word processor. As the name suggests, the video has a runtime of 30 minutes and covers everything from basic formatting features to inserting tables to creating a mail merge to using Macros. To ease navigation, the video description has 22 timestamp bookmarks for all of the different topics covered in the lecture.  

If you have more time, you can view another free course by Sali Kaceli on YouTube that’s a lot more comprehensive. The 'Word 2016 Tutorial: A Comprehensive Guide to Word for Anyone - 32 Modules' not only spends more time on the topics but also covers a lot more ground. 

Best Word course for advanced users

Includes everyday functions

Newbie friendly

Once you have a fair amount of mileage working with Word, you can enhance your skills by taking the "Word 2016: Advanced Tips and Tricks" course. The course runs a little over 1.5 hours and has a handful of little time saving tricks that’ll help you learn to use the commonly used word processing features more efficiently. 

The course begins by helping you customize some of the application’s default settings but can be chiefly divided into two broad sections; one deals with adding and formatting text while the other covers the commonly used tools. The text formatting sections covers topics like automatic text replacement and maintaining proper formatting when copy-pasting text. 

Similarly, there are useful lessons in the tools section to help you set a custom spell-check dictionary, and password protect a document. In the final lesson, the instructor explains the various options for compressing images available in Word and the difference between them.

The price for this course is around $45.

Read our full LinkedIn Learning review.

Best Word course for VBA Programming

Comprehensive introduction to VBA

Focus on automating Word

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the internal programming language that’s used by the various applications in the Microsoft Office suite. Users can use VBA to extract more functionality from the apps than what is normally available within its menus. The "Microsoft Word VBA Macro Programming - Introduction" course will equip you with the skills you need to write and edit Macros to automate the tasks of Microsoft Word.

You’ll learn how to record macros at the start of the course, before stepping into the Visual Basic Editor to write your own macros. There’s no dearth of VBA course on the Internet, but most of them focus on Microsoft Excel, which wouldn’t be of much use on Microsoft Word. 

VBA uses some of the same concepts as programming languages like variables and the good thing about the course is that it is designed for someone who hasn’t done any programming. Of course, if you have programmed before, you’ll be able to get through the 13 hour course a lot faster. However, the instructor insists that you have a fairly good knowledge of Word in order to get the maximum benefit from this course.

The course costs around $70.

Find out more in our full Udemy review.

Best Word course for self-publishing

Clear and concise

Helpful examples

Useful tips

Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is one of the more popular platforms for authors who want to self-publish. After you’ve penned your best-seller, you can take the "Amazon Self-publishing 2: Kindle eBook Formatting Using Microsoft Word" course to prepare your manuscript for publishing on the platform. 

The course is the second part of the instructor’s series of courses on self-publishing on Amazon, and teaches you how to format your document for the KDP self-publishing platform. The instructor uses Microsoft Word 2016 and in the 26 minute course covers all the essential Word tools and functions that you must use in order to format your document for publishing. 

What makes the course valuable is that the instructor speaks from experience and tells you how each setting will influence your published manuscript. While the course is designed specifically for KDP, the tips and tricks will more or less work across all publishing platforms. 

Read our full SkillShare review.

We've featured the best alternatives to Microsoft Word here.

When deciding which of the best Word online courses to use, first consider what level of competency you are currently at. If you've not learned Word before then it would probably be recommended to start with a beginner course, as this will break you into the basics you'll need before you cover more advanced features. However, if you already have a decent amount of experience with Word and word processing programs in general then feel free to try your hand with the more advanced courses.

To test for the best Word online courses we searched for a range of popular online learning platforms and took recommendations from people we know who are either learning Word or who are already very familiar with it. Then we followed the tutorials on each platform to get an idea of how easy they were to follow, how easy it was to learn essential tools and processes, and additionally what sort of user level the courses were aimed at, such as beginner, medium, or advanced-level users.

See how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar.  

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