You are now able to access and download Microsoft clip art and Microsoft office templates for free at http://office.microsoft.com.

The website offers hundreds of clipart images which are provided by many stock photo providers, as well as free clip art websites. Anyone has access to download them.

Microsoft templates are also available for free download, for the use with Microsoft Office. Currently there are templates available for educational use, as well as business use. The site includes hundreds of resume templates as well as templates for just about any subject in high school or college.

There are literally hundreds of template categories to choose from. They include Award certificates, brochures, budgets, business cards, calendars, content slides, databases, lists, memos, newsletters, planners, receipts, reports and plenty more.

This is a huge step for Microsoft (MSFT) in creating a free marketplace for their widely used Office software. This should help them complete with other cloud based services like Google Documents.

What do you think about these free offerings by Microsoft? Will it convince you to use Microsoft Office more?