Last week we showed you how to use Google Fonts in your Office documents. Here’s how to choose good looking font pairs for your Word headings and body text or PowerPoint titles and text. The Google Fonts site itself is little help but others have curated suggested pairings. Most of the suggested Google Font pairs […]
It’s easy to get mixed up between two seemingly similar Excel functions – Vlookup() and Choose() . Here’s how to, er, choose between the two. Choose( index_num, value1, [value2], [value3].. ) lets you select one item from a list within the function. For example: Choose(2, “High”, “Middle”, “Low”) will return the second list item; “Middle”. […]
In an entirely predictable move, Microsoft is dropping the full OneNote desktop program from their lineup. OneNote 2016 for Windows, the traditional Windows program is being killed. It’ll be a slow death but it’ll still be dead. OneNote 2016 for Windows will be supported with security patches until October 2025 but will get no new […]
It’s a simple question – How can I delete a blank page in Microsoft Word? The answer isn’t so simple because there are many reasons for Word to add another page and various tricks to getting rid of them. The most common type of extra page is at the end of a document. There are […]
An infected email supposedly from the UK government appeared in our Outlook Inbox. It’s a good example of what to be careful of in emails and how some Outlook settings protect you from harm. Here’s the message that got through our mail hosts checks and Outlook’s. Many things in this email are a ‘Red Flag’ […]
Empty or unwanted pages just after a Word table are especially annoying. Trying to select anything after the table can be difficult unless you know the tricks. Here’s the common problem in Word. A table goes to the end of a document or section but another empty page is added. Clicking Home | Paragraph | […]
Jeff Bezos doesn’t like PowerPoint or any other slideshow system at Amazon meetings. That’s what leapt out at us from his 2017 Letter to Amazon shareholders (published in April 2018). “We don’t do PowerPoint (or any other slide-oriented) presentations at Amazon. Instead, we write narratively structured six-page memos.” Those memos are read silently at the […]
Talk about being behind the times. Google is reportedly about to release an SMS Replacement called Chat. Chat is an attempt to modernize SMS beyond simple text messaging. It will have group texts, videos and images, typing indicators and read receipts. Chat isn’t an app, it’s part of the Android operating system replacing the current […]
A KPMG team in Florida, USA are embarrassed and lost an important client all because of a slip of the keyboard and Outlook’s email AutoComplete feature. Miami Today has the story of the proposed new Miami-Dade courthouse and a mistake by the courthouse consultant’s KPMG. A confidential proposal and evaluation was mistakenly sent by KPMG […]
Google has a wonderful collection of free open-source fonts available and, if you know the magic spell, they can be used in Microsoft Office, Windows or Mac. There are 877 Google Font families currently available at https://fonts.google.com Google Fonts are intended for use with web sites. The company has a open source for the font […]
In the UK there’s been a lot of laughs and some red faces about a money raising letter ‘signed’ by the Conservative Prime Minister to a ” Mr Youmustbe F*ckingjoking ” and sent to a pensioner. It’s easy to laugh but anyone who has done large mailings knows that it’s a case of “There but […]
Will Dormann in exposing the half-measure Outlook patch also shows that more complex passwords with mixed-case letters plus digits and symbols is better than a simple long password. The highest length of time to crack an 8 character password from NTLMv2 hash with a mere single mid-range GPU. Longer passwords are better but you don’t need […]
Kerning is a font setting that’s important in Word and PowerPoint. We’ll explain kerning and why you mostly don’t have to worry about it. Kerning adjusts the horizontal space between letters so they look right to the human eye. It’s necessary because letters take up different amounts of space and the letter shape can clash […]
Here’s how to use the font kerning settings in Microsoft Office, Word and PowerPoint. See our short guide to kerning to understand the settings and artistry behind kerning. Kerning letters makes a difference as the letters get larger so the setting is more important for headings and titles in Word and PowerPoint. Windows and Mac […]
Last week we looked at design and typography in 2001: A Space Odyssey and how to use the ‘2001’ look in Microsoft Office. Two readers asked about some curious kerning in our version of the title font. Maybe you’re not interested in the fine detail of the text in a fifty year old film? Fair […]
Microsoft’s half-hearted attitude to security matters is demonstrated yet again with a new patch for Outlook. The patch has taken over a year to be released and doesn’t properly block the security lapse. It all started back in November 2016 when Microsoft was informed of a problem with RTF documents with an external link to […]
Will R. an Office-Watch.com reminded us of a trap when dealing with .doc and .docx files. “I opened a command prompt and did a del *.doc. Imagine my surprise when it deleted both .doc and .docx files (I have backups). ” Firstly, a teacher’s gold star plus wise owl stamp to Will for having backups! Yes, it’s […]
Last Friday, Office 365 customers in Europe and especially the UK had to stop working as the Microsoft hosting servers stopped working. When trying to use email online, users only saw an ‘AADSTS90033’ error, and the message: “Service is temporarily unavailable. Please retry later.” As usual, Microsoft’s communications were mixed. The company doesn’t want to […]
The Spring Creators update to Windows 10 is coming this week. Windows 10 Spring Creators 2018 for Microsoft Office users, Creators edition is ready now before Microsoft publicly releases the new Windows 10. Past purchasers of Windows 10 for Microsoft Office users get a free update to the new edition. Be ready for the major changes […]
How to use our ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ examples as inspiration or a starting point for your own look in Word or PowerPoint. PowerPoint slides Moving from film stills to PowerPoint slides is fairly straightforward. You could open a presentation with a slide that evokes the opening of ‘2001’ then slides for the start of […]
It’s the 50th anniversary of Kubrick and Clarke’s amazing 2001: A Space Odyssey. As long time space and SF nerds we can’t resist putting the look of 2001 into Word documents and PowerPoint slides. We’ll show you how to make a ‘close match’ using just the fonts and features in Microsoft Office. We’ll also explain […]
Remember that court case where Microsoft sued the US government over a warrant to collect someone’s cloud data? Well, it’s over and the result isn’t good for anyone who likes to keep their documents, databases, photos or emails private. The case was about data saved on Microsoft’s cloud service in Ireland. The US government wanted […]
Options to easily import live data about stocks and locations into Excel are coming. Microsoft is uncharacteristically quiet about these new features and not using their usual hype. Microsoft is soft pedaling these features by talking about ‘new data types’ which sounds very dry and complicated. It looks more interesting when you see it in […]
Should you even bother bulk converting old documents (.doc .xls .ppt) into the newer Office formats (.docx .xlsx .pptx etc.)? It’s tempting to look at your older documents (doc etc) and think about converting them into the newer Office formats. There’s some advantages to conversion but it’s more difficult than you might expect and probably […]
How to bulk convert old documents (.doc .xls .ppt) into the newer Office formats (.docx .xlsx .pptx etc.). Microsoft has never produced a simple bulk conversion tool for the masses, much to the annoyance of users and network administrators. Redmond probably made that choice for their own self-interest but some of the reasons also serve […]
After last week’s article, it’s clear some folks haven’t changed or still accept the older .doc .xls or .ppt files as email attachments. That’s a risky thing to do, especially when there’s a common and better alternative. Mostly it’s because of misunderstandings about the many advantages of the ‘new’ Office document formats .docx .xlsx or […]
We’ve received some questions from readers in the last few days showing that, even after a decade, there’s still misinformation about the ‘new’ Office document formats .docx .xlsx etc. We’ll explain these myths and how you can easily disprove them yourself. Most of these myths surround the use of ZIP compression to make the document […]
Here’s how to convert an older .doc .xls or .ppt into a safer and smaller .docx .xlsx .pptx even if you don’t have Microsoft Office. Any smart computer user is wary of documents received in the old .doc .xls .ppt formats because they are regularly used to transmit viruses. The new document formats are much […]
Apple’s announcement of special ‘education’ prices for iPad and Macbook Air opens an opportunity for almost anyone to get the cheaper prices. Not that we’d suggest lying to Apple. No, never. Telling fibs to a gigantic company is wrong. It’s not like Apple has even lied to their customers <sigh>. The new offer discounts about […]
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times … ignore or delete any .DOC .XLS .PPT files you get via email or shared. The main carrier of virus infection is Microsoft Office documents, a fact that Microsoft doesn’t like to talk about. What Microsoft doesn’t say is that the major source of […]
What should you do when Microsoft asks to see one of your documents? Submit the files or not? There’s no easy answer when Microsoft asks to see a file from your computer for their anti-virus system, Windows Defender. Do you send the files or not? This can happen with Defender hits a file that seems […]
The Microsoft To Do app hasn’t got near customer expectations, let alone Microsoft’s promises. Now there’s some hints about why. To Do was born from Wunderlist, a popular app that was bought by Microsoft. Redmond summarily closed Wunderlist, to the annoyance of the apps many fans. Microsoft promised the app would be the same and […]
Microsoft is updating the rules which govern use of their services including Office 365, OneDrive, SharePoint, Cortana and Xbox. Despite what you might have heard, there’s nothing really new or changed, just some clickbait headlines. There are reasons to be concerned about the Microsoft Terms and Conditions, but they are long-standing worries, nothing about the […]
One thing we can rely on a Office-Watch.com is the regular flow of emails asking about Winmail.dat attachments to emails. What they are and what to do about them. Winmail.dat is part of Microsoft’s own Rich Text Format for emails. RTF has been mostly superseded by the more open HTML based email format but RTF […]
Outlook Data Files are one of those things you don’t worry about when setting up Outlook for Windows for the first time. But as you use Outlook more, it’s important to understand what Microsoft is doing for backup and repair purposes. The main data files (.PST or .OST) are a store on your computer of […]
A recent New York Times article about Microsoft Word has good information but the headline is quite wrong. The article is called “How to Format Documents While Barely Lifting a Finger” so we expected a piece about how to reformat a document using themes or styles. Instead it’s about dictation in Google Docs, Windows, Office […]
It’s been a busy few weeks for Richard Appiah Akoto the Ghanaian teacher who taught Microsoft Word with only a blackboard. Mr Akoto was flown to Singapore for a Microsoft Education conference where he received a standing ovation. Quite something for his first trip outside Ghana. “I wanted to teach them how to launch Microsoft […]
Blackberry got a rare stock price boost when they announced a collaboration with Microsoft Office yesterday. Blackberry will use their Dynamics product to provide a higher level of security and administration of the Microsoft Office mobile apps. Blackberry Dynamics is a way for organizations to deploy trusted mobile apps to devices, administer them and track […]
You’ve all heard about “The Cloud” as if everyone knows what it is. It’s clear from recent reader messages that not everyone knows about The Cloud. Or they think they know. Or they don’t realize how much the cloud can and will do. Office-Watch.com explains the cloud and how it applies to Microsoft Office. What […]
With all the news about data leaks from Facebook and others, we thought it was time to restate our privacy policy. Office-Watch.com deliberately keeps as little information as possible about our readers and customers. That costs us dearly as a business but we feel it’s the right thing to do. Newsletters For our newsletters, all we […]
