Office 365 at the University of Illinois
Students and faculty at many educational institutions, including the University of Illinois, automatically have access to Microsoft Office 365, which provides a set of a cloud-based web apps and storage services that are analogous to and compatible with Microsoft Office desktop software like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
If you are familiar with Microsoft Office software, the web versions have a user interface and set of features that you should be able to master on your own with a minimal learning curve.
This tutorial gives a basic introduction to a handful of Office 365 functions that may be of value to you for working on class assignments.
Logging In
You log in to Office 365 at https://office.com
You will normally log in to a school-provided (enterprise) account using your school e-mail address and the password you use to log in to other school services.
Upon successful login, you will see a home page that allows you to access Office 365 web apps like OneDrive.
Creating a New Word Document
On the OneDrive home page, you can create a new Word document by selecting Add New and Word Document.
Pasting a Screenshot Into a Word Document
On a Windows machine, you can take a screenshot by pressing the PrtSc (print screen) button (usually in the top right row of your keyboard) and then press Ctrl + V to paste the screenshot into your document.
On Mac, you press the Shift, Command, and 3 keys together. This will save a PNG file on your desktop that you can insert into your document. On the MacOS Mohave release or later, Shift, Command, and 5 will open a screenshots app.
Sharing a Word Document
Because this document is saved on OneDrive (cloud storage), you can share this document with a shared link. Click the Share button, select Copy Link, and Copy the link.
By default, the link you share will allow the recipient to edit the document.
If you only want them to be able to read the document without changing it, click the Share button, click Anyone with the link can edit, uncheck the Allow editing button, Apply, Copy Link, and Copy the read-only link.
Uploading and Sharing a Document on OneDrive
If you have a file of any kind (Word document, Excel spreadsheet, PDF file, ZIP file, etc.) you can upload it to OneDrive and get a shared link.
As with Word documents, the link can be read-only, or you can allow people to edit the document if you are collaborating with them.
Creating a New Folder in One Drive
As on your local computer, you can create folders in OneDrive to keep related files together.
Annotating an Image in PowerPoint Online
If the image you wish to annotate is available as an image file (JPEG, PNG, GIF), you can insert it directly. This is the best option because it preserves resolution and makes it possible to zoom in and see more detail.
If you are annotating an image from a PDF file and you do not have software (like Photoshop or GIMP) that can convert the PDF into an image, you can create a screenshot (by pressing the Print Screen key), paste it into your slide (by pressing CTRL-V), and crop it. However, this limits the resolution of the image to the resolution of your screen, so the image will be fuzzy and have limited detail of small text and features.
Creating and Uploading a .zip Archive
If you need to share multiple related files, it can be helpful to package them all together in a .zip archive file, upload it to OneDrive, and then be able to have one link you can share with others.
- On Windows, you in the File Explorer you right-click on a folder and select Sent to and Compressed (zipped) folder.
- On Mac OS, you right-click on a folder and select Compress.
- In OneDrive, select Upload and files and then select the .zip file to upload.
- To get a sharable link, click the ellipsis (...) beside the uploaded .zip file and select Share.
- If sharing outside your organization or if you wish to avoid having recipients have to log in to access your file, change the sharing to Anyone with the link.