Microsoft Word has several ways to quickly insert placeholder text into documents. Sometimes you want to add some random text to a document as filler, but don’t want to think of something to write yourself. While there are websites that will generate placeholder text for you, it is also possible to do this directly within […]
Our articles about saving past events with anniversary reminders begs the question; How far back can Outlook save an event. The answer in Outlook for Windows, Mac and online is 1 April 1601. Trying to enter a date before 1st April 1601 brings up an error: “You must specify a valid date and/or time”. That […]
Most people are familiar with Word’s Spelling & Grammar check functionality, Word’s Readability check is a great extension. Word can check the complexity of your writing, and gives you an idea of whether your writing will be understood by your target audience. We’ll show you how to see Word’s Readability Statistics, what they mean and […]
Here’s a practical example of how to share an appointment or event with reminders using the iCalendar .ics standard. Some Apollo 11 events ready to download and add to your calendar (in Outlook or other software). Outlook supports .ics files and so does most other calendar programs. They are small text files which have all […]
Here’s the enhanced Apollo 11 mission timeline as an Excel worksheet. Office Watch newsletter readers asked for it after last weeks articles using the NASA web page as a data source. Complete Apollo 11 timeline in Excel Things to do with the Apollo 11 timeline in Excel Apollo 11 suggested viewing and reading The full […]
The 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 has unleashed so many books and videos you could easily trip over them walking down the street. Our Editor-in-Chief, Peter Deegan, has been a NASA nut since well before July 1969. Friends have asked him for recommendations of what you see and read … here’s his suggestions. They are […]
There are many ways to share an entire calendar or individual events in Outlook software. Sharing can be ‘live’ and connected. Any changes or updates to the event or calendar are automatically sent to everyone sharing. Or it can be a ‘one-off’ item. A special attachment which is emailed or a little .ics file. Receivers […]
An Excel worksheet with Apollo 11 timeline can be used to analyze and breakdown the astronaut’s movements plus answer the big question: what time was it when Armstrong walked on the moon? See how we put the Apollo 11 timeline into Excel using Get & Transform or the older Copy/Paste method. Also Add Apollo 11 events […]
NASA has a detailed web page with the timeline of the Apollo 11 mission from before liftoff to well after splashdown It’s an example of the two ways to put a web table into an Excel worksheet. Newer Excel (365, 2019 and 2016) has PowerQuery with ‘Get and Transform’ which is much better. The older […]
One way to get a web table into Excel is simply to copy the page from your browser into an Excel workbook. This method works for all versions of Excel back more than a decade. It’s been superseded by Get and Transform with PowerQuery which does a much better job of conversion. See Complete Apollo 11 […]
SoftMaker’s FreeOffice 2018 has received a major revision. Possibly borrowing from Microsoft, the July 2019 release is called the Anniversary update. A few years ago, Windows 10 got an ‘Anniversary’ update. Anniversary of what was never made clear and didn’t seem to matter. Some of the interesting features in FreeOffice Anniversary update are: TextMaker, PlanMaker […]
Emails claiming to be OneNote Audio files are really a trick to steal your Microsoft login and password. They use Microsoft’s own SharePoint.com and Windows hosting to fool people. Bleeping Computer with help from ransomware hunter Michael Gillespie show examples of a phishing email which claims to be from a contact sending you a OneNote […]
Microsoft Teams is claiming a numerical victory over it’s rival, claiming that their Teams collaboration service has more users than the rival.. Teams daily has 13 million users and to 19 million users over a week, according to Microsoft. Source: Microsoft That’s a unaudited and self-serving figure. Microsoft ‘has form’ in releasing boastful figures whether […]
Amazon Prime members might have a chance to get Office 365 cheaply while the Prime Day deals are on. The Amazon ‘Prime Day’ runs for two days (go figure), Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th apparently according to local time zones. Office 365 Home is often discounted but rarely to the extent that the Prime Day […]
Sketchy Shapes, the new line option in Office 365 now has a little video to go with it. Sketchy line option in Office for Windows and Mac Sketchy or wriggly lines in Icons and SVG graphics Source: Microsoft
An upcoming feature in Word 365 for Windows (commercial editions) will be able to detect and define acronyms. When Word ‘sees’ an acronym it will try to show a definition based on it’s context in the document and how other people use the same acronym in the organization. Source: Microsoft plus some extra edits That’s […]
The 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 is our excuse to show-off some features in Outlook for Windows/Mac. How to add past events, post events in other time zones, get reminders of upcoming anniversaries and set reminders for longer times than Outlook allows. Adding Past Events Outlook can save details of past events. That it’s in […]
PowerPoint for Windows and Mac getting much better ink replay and animation support as shown in a new build for Office Insiders. Up to now, digital ink drawings could be replayed as a simple animation. That’s been available for about three years starting with OneNote Mobile. That was OK but, as we noted back in […]
Back in the 16th Century, italic fonts were invented and that trick can still be used today in Microsoft Word. Italics let you fit more text into the same space. An innovative Venetian publisher, Manutius, needed to make small and affordable books. Paper was expensive so anything that put more text on the page was […]
The Privacy Commissioner for the German state of Hesse says that Office 365 should not be used in schools due to privacy concerns and access to the data by US authorities. It’s the result of Microsoft withdrawing from a previous arrangement to have German located servers which only the German authorities could regulate. In 2018, […]
It’s time for the July roundup of patches for yet more security bugs in Microsoft Office including Office 365 and Office 2016 for Windows plus Office 2013 and 2010. Plus the latest example of confusing documentation errors. Office 365 and Office 2019 A bug which lets Office Javascript doesn’t check the web page requesting details […]
Anyone with their own domain name for email needs to make sure their SPF setting is correct. These days not just recommended, it’s critical to ensuring email reaches its destination. We’re not talking about sunscreen but Sender Policy Framework which is a method of verifying that emails for a domain name come from an authorized […]
Here’s another case of someone trying to backdate documents and being caught by hidden details in the file. The font is the giveaway but not in the usual way. It’s the ongoing saga of Craig Wright, once a big name in the cyber-currency game. He’s now involved in a court case about the alleged theft […]
There’s a security bug in Windows that’s so serious Microsoft has released fixes for version of Windows they don’t officially support anymore. Here are links to the critical updates necessary or workaround if updating isn’t possible. About Bluekeep The Bluekeep security hole is being used by criminals to attack computers to install ransomware or steal […]
Office Icons and other SVG graphics can change a lot with Sketchy lines. Sketchy lines is the new ‘hand-drawn’ line option available in Office 365 for Windows or Mac. It lets you change those somewhat stuffy and formal icons into something more casual and hand-drawn. Icons are an Office 365 feature to add scalable graphics […]
Office for Windows/Mac is getting three new outline styles for the borders of shapes and text boxes. Microsoft calls these lines ‘Sketchy’ because they have a hand-drawn line look. It’s a nice little addition to Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook. Let’s see how it works plus some details and limitations that Microsoft hasn’t mentioned. Source: […]
You’re not stuck with the Microsoft automatic settings when inserting a new shape. Change the defaults to whatever you like for faster shape formatting in Office; Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. When you Insert | Shape, something like this probably appears. Blue fill, 1pt black single line outline, no effects and Text Wrapping in front […]
You’re not stuck with the Microsoft automatic settings when inserting a new text box. Change the defaults to whatever you like for faster text box formatting in Office; Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. When you Insert | Shape | Text Box , something like this probably appears. Thin black outline, no fill and text wrapping […]
If you regularly translate text from or to the same language, you can set default languages. Once you have set the languages, Word will automatically translate the text as soon as you hit Translate, without you having to set the text each time. To set the default languages, go to Review | Translate | Set […]
Word lets you translate an entire document in one go, either right click anywhere in the document, right click and select Translate, or go to Review | Translate | Translate Document. As with translating a selection, the Translator will open in a sidebar, where you can select the languages to translate from and to. Generally, […]
Word has a feature to translate text from one language to another. Whilst the translation may not be perfect, it does give you a starting point to understanding what the text says. You can either translate a selected piece of text, or the whole document. Translate works slightly differently depending on which you choose. Choosing […]
If you’re the sort of person who’s easily distracted, or just want to focus on the content of your document without worrying about formatting, there are a number of ways you can clear the distractions from Microsoft Word, so you can focus on the text you’re writing. Minimize the Ribbon Remove the entire ribbon from […]
Here’s a summary of the July non-security updates for Office 2016, Office 2013 and Office 2010. These updates should be automatically installed via Microsoft Update or you can apply them manually. Install them now if there’s a listed bug you need fixing, otherwise play it safe. Leave some time for any bugs in the patches […]
The US government has issued a new warning about malware which takes advantage of a security lapse in Outlook for Windows, which was patched over 18 months ago. The warning generated a lot of scary headlines, especially since there’s suspect Iranian involvement. If you’ve been taking standard precautions and updated your Office for Windows there’s […]
The Power Query exploit in Excel is a concern but one that most Excel users are already protected from. Look past some of the shock headlines (e.g “120 million users personal information at stake due to Microsoft Excel flaw”) . Mimecast did a good job tracing this security bug in Power Query which has existed […]
There are times when we wonder about the decision-making process at Microsoft and the revelation about the stopping of registry backups in Windows 10 is a sad example of a bad choice. We’ll explain what Microsoft secretly did last year to make Windows 10, Office and other programs less reliable and how you can fix […]
In Adding Vertical Lines in Word we looked at the many choices for lines down the page. Moving beyond that, let’s look at other vertical non-line choices to spice up a Word document. Sidebar Sidebars are the starting point for many different design element options. You’re not limited to what Microsoft supplies, just use them […]
If you know the trick, Word’s ‘Line Between’ option for multiple columns can be formatted to a different color or other types of line. The downside Word’s standard line between column setting is the lack of formatting. There’s no known way to change the look of the vertical line between columns. Like the old Model […]
There are at least five ways to add a vertical line in Word. Vertical lines can help accentuate a piece of text in Word, but knowing how to add them is not as intuitive as adding a horizontal line. Adding a border Or a Page Border Using the shape tool Adding a bar tab Adding […]
How can you buy an older version of Microsoft Office to fit in with your other computers? Fran, a loyal Office-Watch.com reader has that problem getting Office 2013. “ I have Office 2013 on two computers now. Is there a way to get another copy for the new Microsoft Surface I just bought for less than the price […]
