After our recent Excel worksheet for visitors to Europe we were asked for a similar one to help people stay onside with the UK Statutory Residence Test (SRT). This is a test to decide if someone is a UK resident for tax purposes. Depending on the situation, a person can be in the UK for […]
After the report of pirated / illegal Microsoft Office from an Amazon retailer (and Amazon’s initial refusal to act) how can you protect yourself from a similar problem on Amazon or other sites? Your entitlement to a refund or redress for a illegal product is different depending on whether you buy from Amazon itself or […]
“More of the same” in August 2018’s round of security fixes for Microsoft products including Windows, Office, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Overall there a sixty security flaws fixed this month alone, including two ‘zero-day’ bugs not previously known to the public. We’ve all become accustomed to this never-ending stream of security fixes for known exploits. […]
There’s a series of August 2018 patches under the broad heading ‘Microsoft Office Defense in Depth update’ which seems to be obscure important changes in Outlook 2010 through 2016. ADV180021 is called “Microsoft Office Defense in Depth Update” and “Microsoft has released an update for Microsoft Office that provides enhanced security as a defense in […]
Here’s the sad tale of a Californian woman who bought a pirated copy of Microsoft Office from an Amazon retailer and the hassle she had getting Amazon to do the right thing. There’s a happy ending but only because a local TV station intervened. That’s not an option for all Amazon customers. Cynthia Brizard, a […]
There are a dozen bug fixes for the Windows versions of Word 2016 buried among the non-security updates for Microsoft Office this month. And an extra feature for PowerPoint 2016 and 2013 for Windows. We’ll look at this important Word 2016 update first before listing the other bug fixes for Office 2016 and Office 2013 […]
Almost unnoticed among the August 2018 updates are some new options for linking online videos into PowerPoint 2016 and PowerPoint 2013 presentations to Vimeo and LinkedIn as well as YouTube. Until now, only YouTube videos were supported. Now it’s now possible to link to videos from Vimeo LinkedIn SlideShare YouTube – what Microsoft calls their […]
Microsoft seems to be moving towards a name change for ‘Office 2016’. They haven’t announced anything directly, but their documentation is changing for Windows and perhaps Office for Mac as well. If you’re confused, don’t feel bad because Redmond isn’t making it easy. They are moving gradually towards naming Microsoft Office as a service instead […]
You can quickly apply some Word styles from the Quick Access Toolbar we’ll show how to add the classic Style menu, buttons for Headings and Normal style. And we’ll explain a better alternative. The Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) can have a more useful Style menu than the one Microsoft puts on the ribbon. It’s the […]
Here’s how to add a keyboard shortcut for any Microsoft Word style including Headings and Normal style. A shortcut is faster than clicking on the ribbon anytime you want to apply a style. For commonly used styles it’s easier and faster to use a keyboard shortcut. Microsoft even supplies a few with Word, but not […]
The next macOS release will include a tool to migrate Outlook for Windows data to Outlook for Mac. The upcoming macOS release codenamed Mojave will have an improved Windows Migration Assistant. Apple says it will include more third-party programs including Microsoft Outlook. The news came via a sharp-eyed Twitter user who looked into the release […]
The August Insiders update for Word and PowerPoint for Android have improved Zoom features plus another option is entirely missing! We’ve tested these features to see how they really work, assuming the promoted features are there at all. Office Watch hasn’t taken Microsoft at their word. We’ve tried out the software to see how the […]
Microsoft has announced a 10% price increase for the Office 2019 commercial / volume licences. Sorry, it’s not an increase it’s a ‘price adjustment’ <sigh>. Office 2019 client, Enterprise CAL, Core CAL, and Office 2019 server products are all up 10% from 1 October 2018. These are all single-payment / perpetual licence products instead of […]
You’ve probably seen the headlines about the new ‘Outlook’ Dark Mode but there’s much less to this feature than all the hype suggests. It only applies to one of the many ” Outlook’s ” out there. We’ll explain what Dark Mode is, which Outlook it applies to and how to get a similar effect in […]
A few weeks ago we told you Facebook is considering a defection from Microsoft’s Office 365, that was just one player in a much bigger game for office software and cloud related services. Google is pressing hard to get as many as possible Fortune 500 companies signed up to their word processing, spreadsheet and presentation […]
A teenager from Auckland, New Zealand has won the World Microsoft PowerPoint championship for 2018. Tristan Mona beat over 760,000 other competitors from 100 countries in the finals held in Florida, USA. He’s the first person from ‘Ennzed’ to win a coveted Microsoft Office Specialist title. For his troubles, Tristan gets a $7,000 cash prize […]
The Navigation Pane was a great addition to Word (for Windows … our Mac friends have yet to get it) but there’s more in that pane than the obvious. Doing a Find appears in four different ways, three on Navigation Pane. Heading view has controls over which heading levels appear. You can move the Navigation […]
There are better ways to move about a document than scrolling up and down. Word has some nifty navigation tricks that’ll have you moving around a document like a city bicycle courier! We’ll skip the more obvious ones that are covered in most texts and explain the navigation tips less traveled. Go Back Go To […]
The Edinburgh International Festival is just one of the August festivals in the city. They have some methods of adding their show information into Outlook but with some traps along the way. On the My Festivals page for each account, use the ICS Calendar Link to get a list of your bookings to add into […]
If you love drama, comedy or music then you’d love Edinburgh, Scotland during August. It’s a busy, busy time with so much going on that you’ll need your online calendar and Outlook to keep track of everything. In this and other articles, we’ll give you a practical guide to managing a complex schedule using Outlook […]
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival has some help adding your Fringe bookings into Outlook with some tricks and traps they don’t mention. Overall The Edinburgh Fringe Festival has an excellent site and apps with an online calendar for each customer and a feature to download booked events into Outlook. It would be fantastic except that there’s […]
Here’s some tips from our Editor-in-Chief, Peter Deegan on getting the most from a Edinburgh visit in August. Create an online account with the main festival sites (International, Fringe and Underbelly). You can login and see what shows you’ve booked, make your own list of ‘favorites’ to choose from. Sign up for their email newsletters […]
A North Carolina woman and her son are accused of sharing their discounted Microsoft Office access with her ex-husband, a clear breach of the Home Use Program. Source: WLOS, “your Western Carolina News Leader” We’ve been talking about the Home Use Program for many years. It’s a heavily discounted Microsoft Office available to employees of […]
Excel has an in-built feature to remove duplicates from a list but what if you want to delete both items if they are duplicated or more than two? Remove Duplicates Remove Duplicates is tucked away on the Data tab, Data Tools | Remove Duplicates. It will ensure that an Excel list/table has only unique values […]
Here’s how to make a custom ribbon tab in Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook and how Microsoft has left customers shortchanged for the last decade. We’ve already talked about customizing the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) for certain documents. You can make the QAT adapt according to the document you’ve opened. Alas, that’s not possible […]
There’s a little trap in Excel when figuring out the number of days between two dates. Excel has one way, but the real world has two others. It’s easy to forget the differences, in fact we forgot it ourselves in the Schenghen Visa Calculation. This article is part explanation, part warning and part mea-culpa. How […]
Grammar checking is finally coming to Google Docs and maybe it’ll be better than the long-standing Microsoft Word feature. We’ve had blue squiggly lines in Microsoft Word for a long time. Google Docs has noticeably not had a similar feature, until now. Source: Google According to Google their grammar checking is different. They don’t mention […]
There’s an amazing collection of Apple device (iOS) and computer (MacOS) you can use on PowerPoint slides or a Windows desktop. ‘nucleam’ put the collection up on Google Photos. They range from the most recent for iPhone back to the early days of iOS 3. Some are famous images, a Da Vinci here, a Seurat […]
Microsoft’s second quarter 2018 results came out with some pleasant surprises for the financial analysts. Both earnings per share and overall revenue beat market predictions. No wonder MSFT stock price went up 4 percent after the results went public. Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 10% mostly driven by Office 365 commercial revenue […]
A faulty Microsoft Windows security update not only didn’t fix the bug in VBScript, it opened another way for hackers to access a computer. Patching software is a complex thing, but this blunder is unforgivably bad and the delays make it even worse. It undermines confidence in Microsoft security testing and their willingness to fully […]
The truly interesting Excel live Stock price and Geography data feeds have reached the next release stage, ‘Monthly Channel (Targeted)’ better known as ‘Slow’ Insiders. Stock and Geo data types are now in Excel 2016 for Windows, Office 365 subscribers who have chosen the ‘Monthly Channel (Targeted)’ Insiders release. Version 1807 (Build 10325.20030) or later. Stock […]
Remember Office Mix? It was Microsoft’s effort to make PowerPoint slide more interactive and online. What happened to it and why hasn’t it been properly replaced? Mix is one of those Microsoft ventures which they encourage Office customers to spend time and money on. Redmond promises their wholehearted support for the technology right up to […]
Not all Word documents need the same tools. Some special documents are easier to make with tools added to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) just for the occasion. Changing the Quick Access Toolbar has been around since Office 2007 but it’s less well-known that you can change it for certain types of documents. The QAT […]
Here’s a quick look at some of the modest Excel tricks we used to make the Schengen Visa Calculation worksheet. Table Making the itinerary list an Excel Table lets us make use of some features. Formatting It’s a lot easier to format as a table with banded rows. We’ve turned off the Table | Filter […]
Here’s a handy Excel worksheet for visitors to Europe. It’ll help you stay within the legal limits for ‘short stays’ by visitors to the EU Schengen zone. Most visitors to Europe are allowed to stay in the Schengen group of countries for 90 days out of the previous 180 days. That’s simple if you’re just […]
aka The lie that’s stopped you from more secure online accounts. For some years we’ve been banging on about Two-Factor Authentication. ‘2-fac’ is one of the main protections against online hacking and identity theft. Savvy online users have 2Fac for their main online accounts: Microsoft/Office 365 account, Google. Facebook, banking and especially any email hosting. […]
The Information is reporting that Facebook is considering moving from Office 365 to Google Apps for their 27,000 employees. The report from two sources would mean a “180” by Facebook which moved away from Google to Microsoft Office 365 only two years ago. Follow us on Facebook, it just takes a moment. At the time, […]
Android users can get some extra features like Word count and landscape editing of PowerPoint slides in the July 2018 updates to Office for Android apps. Version 16.0.10325.20043 of the apps are now available. Most likely, Google Play will update your device automatically. Word Count in Word for Android The document word count appears as […]
Microsoft Teams is primarily a cloud and web-based service with software or apps available for the main platforms. Teams features appear to be introduced first to the browser based Teams then added to apps later on. We’ve had considerable trouble with the Teams apps during testing. Perhaps that because of limitations in the free Teams […]
Microsoft Teams truly is for everyone, now there’s a free plan available. Of course it’s aimed at businesses, ‘coz that’s where the money is. But with Teams now available free it’s open for small business and non-business uses. Small business Small or even tiny business can use Microsoft Teams for specific projects like a new […]
