Soon, Office 365 will warn you when the document, worksheet or presentation uses a document format that doesn’t support modern accessibility features. Accessibility features like alt text in images, color contrast, heading consistency, table structures are only available with the modern Office document formats ( .docx .xlsx .pptx etc). Office 365 for Windows from Insider […]
Microsoft has started its usual sales campaign to go with the end of support for Office 2010 in a year from now. There are alternatives beyond what Microsoft is selling. In a self-serving blog headed “Support for Office 2010 is ending—get current with Office 365 ProPlus” we see the tiresomely familiar marketing strategy playing out. Encouraging customers […]
Over time there’s been a change in the way email programs login to your mail host. It’s mostly hidden from us mere humans but important to understand. Here’s how to use oAuth and how to bypass it, if your email program doesn’t support it. Older versions of Outlook don’t know about Open Authentication but there’s […]
Microsoft is releasing two new keyboards with new keys; an Office key and a dedicated Emoji key. Back in June we talked about the plans for an Office key to go alongside the existing Windows key. Here it is … Source: Microsoft The Office and Emoji keys are on the right of the spacebar. Source: […]
Like it or loath it but the comma ellipsis has arrived ,,, as an alternative to the more common ellipsis with dots. Here’s how to use it in Word and Office. The comma ellipsis is a modern, more casual version. It’s used as a more dramatic, even annoyed trailing off of a thought, compared to […]
Excel has a huge range of charts available and endless ways to customize them, but after working to get it just right, you don’t want to have to go through the whole process again next time you want to make a similar chart. Fortunately, you don’t have to because Excel allows you to save your […]
iTunes has been replaced with separate programs on the new MacOS ‘Catalina’ release. What does that mean for the future of iTunes for Windows? Most people use iTunes for Windows to sync music and videos with their iPad or iPhone. It has many other uses but Windows has it’s own tools for the playing of […]
Here in the UK there’s a very good deal on Office 365 Home, saving more than ₤10 on the street price or 50% off the full retail price. Use this offer to extend your Office 365 plan for a lot less than Microsoft will charge. Office 365 Home is the 6 user annual plan and […]
The new iPad has a great price tag and good features but a hidden price trap for Microsoft Office users. It has a 10.2” screen with support for important accessories like an external keyboard and Apple Pencil. Source: Apple. The trap is in the screen size, at 10.2” it’s 0.1 inches more than Microsoft allows […]
It’s time again for the monthly drop of security updates for Windows and Office. Here’s what caught our eye; two Excel security bugs and a Windows update which kills VMWare Workstation. Commentators are calling this a ‘light’ month for security patches because there are a mere 59 patches instead of the usual 80 or more. […]
Mac users can now update their computers to MacOS Catalina release but there’s important things to do before updating and some good reasons to wait a little while. Microsoft Office compatibility As we warned back in June, older Office for Mac will not work with MacOS Catalina. If you have Office 2011 for Mac or […]
The Washington Post has a useful tip for anyone with Apple AirPods that aren’t maintaining a decent battery life. Use the right wording to Apple support and you should be able to get replacement AirPod’s a little cheaper than retail. Now that AirPods are a few years old, customers are finding the little white plugs […]
Microsoft is pushing out a new Office app for iPhone and Android devices however most Office users won’t need to bother with it. Paid Office 365 subscribers already have better choices as part of their annual plan. The new app is called ‘Microsoft Office Mobile’ and it’s a single app with the basic features of […]
You can add text that appears smaller and slightly below (subscript) or above (superscript) your main text quite easily in Word. This kind of text is commonly used in mathematics (e.g. X2) and other technical fields (e.g. H2O), but can also be used for something as simple as a date or other ordinal number (e.g. […]
There are options in Word to limit access a document in different ways. It’s more fine-grained control of what people can do in the document rather than the entire document permissions options we’ve mentioned before. Restrict Editing options let you collaborate on a document more broadly without the risk that important parts will be changed […]
There are many situations where you need to split up text into separate columns. Names, phone numbers, dates, addresses and lot’s more can be managed with Excel’s Text to Columns, Text to Columns allows you take data from one column, and split it out into multiple columns. This can be used to split full names […]
Here’s how to add a taste of the logo or text from ‘Friends’ to a Word document, PowerPoint slide or other document. All you need is available online plus a little Office trickery. Note for old-timers (like Peter, our Editor-in-Chief). ‘Friends’ was a televisual entertainment shown on broadcast networks in full color. The plots revolved […]
Outlook on the web is now blocking another 38 email attachments because they can be carriers of viruses. But Microsoft doesn’t block the most commonly used files for infecting computers. Far and away the most common infected email attachment is old-style Word documents, with .doc extensions. Excel .xls worksheets and PowerPoint .ppt presentations are similarly […]
Here’s a complete, searchable and sortable list of all the email attachments that are or soon will be blocked by various types of Microsoft Outlook. There’s confusion and inconsistencies in the Microsoft documentation and application of these new blocks. They have a list of blocked attachments for Outlook in “Office 365,, Outlook 2019 Outlook 2016, […]
There are new computers sold with ‘free’ Office 365, what does that mean and how does it work? The offer isn’t what a lot of people expect. Happily, Microsoft has a way to still use the offer even if you already have another Office 365 plan. It’s not ‘Free’ Let’s start with the obvious. It’s […]
NewsBiscuit.com is reporting that Microsoft will release a new Word template for Death Threats. ‘Grammar Nazis are welcoming the news that death threats issued by actual Nazis will soon be correctly spelt and with fewer redundant words after Microsoft announced a new Death Threat template to the latest version of Microsoft Word. A spokesman explained; […]
This is where the Excel Name Box gets really interesting. You can select a cell or range of cells, and give them a name. That name can then be used to find that data again, or in formulas instead of typing in the cell range. It’s the same as going to Formulas | Define Name […]
The Name Box is an unassuming little box at the top of your Excel worksheet that you may not have thought about much, but it has an amazing range of uses. The box is next to the formula bar, and usually displays the address of the cell that you are in. The Name Box can […]
Some ‘money saving tips’ for Office 365 aren’t what they seem. We’ve noticed some wrong tips that keep being repeated. Also a vital money savers that are usually not mentioned even though it’ll save you more money over time. Office Watch has specialized in Microsoft Office for over twenty years. We’ve seen all manner of […]
A recent forced disclosure by the US government demonstrates the use of NSL’s which access your personal data from Microsoft OneDrive and Outlook without a warrant or regular oversight, let alone notice to you. Microsoft, Google, Facebook and many other tech companies (including gaming services) have received National Security Letters which demand information about a […]
Office for Windows is now getting an extra on the Home pane – Recommended Documents which tries to suggest documents you’re involved with. Source: Microsoft Recent Documents has been in Office for a long time. That’s a longer list of recently opened documents. It’s quite different from the new ‘Recommended Documents’. Who gets Recommended Documents? […]
One of the ‘emergency’ options to remember is WordPad, which can open Word documents, available in modern Windows 10, 8.1 and 7. Often overlooked, WordPad can be very useful. It’s always available when Windows is running even in the Safe mode. No extra install or setup needed. It’s on the Start Menu as one of […]
The Upload Center, that annoying little extra in modern Office is being closed down. It’s being replaced with ‘in-system’ alerts in Word, Excel or PowerPoint. The Upload Center controls documents being uploaded from Office to online storage like OneDrive and SharePoint. If you haven’t noticed Upload Center, it appears as a little orange icon on […]
As we suspected, there are more holes in the Office Document Inspector. Our clever readers came up with some possibilities for revealing secrets in documents, worksheets and presentations. Document Inspector is good but could be better. As you’ll see, there really should be a warning about objects with multiple layers. The biggest problem with Document […]
If you want to add a bit of zing to your document, Word has a fun little feature that allows you to add color gradients to your text or background of a text box. You can even use it to add a rainbow effect, which is a bit gaudy but demonstrates the possibilities of more […]
Typing or formatting cells of repetitive data can be very boring, but Excel has an Auto Fill feature to make it easier by automatically filling in data for you. We thought we knew Auto Fill but it has some surprising and useful tricks. Auto Fill goes beyond simple incrementing numbers or dates which is what […]
Slowly but surely we’ve moving towards another name change for Office 365. The main Office consumer products are likely to be renamed ‘Microsoft 365’ and here’s just four indicators that a change is coming. This has been looming for some time. Microsoft has been mostly successful getting organizations and consumers onto annual payments ‘subscriptions’ for […]
Office’s Inspect Document is supposed to remove or scrub information being accidentally included in Word, Excel or PowerPoint files. It’s not perfect and misses out on some critical hidden information that can giveaway secrets. Details in images, layers and even highlighting. Document Inspector is at File | Info in Office for Windows. The feature was […]
Surface pens will now turn on the Draw tab in Word, Excel and PowerPoint automatically. When you pick up a Microsoft Surface Pen, the Draw tab in Office 365 will automatically appear to choose color, thickness of the digital ink. There are a few requirements, but they are pretty obvious: The Surface Pen has to […]
Word 365 for Mac is getting what’s called the ‘Edit PDF’ feature, already available in Word for Windows. Don’t get too excited, Word can’t really edit a PDF file and the results might not be what you want. The ‘editing PDF’ feature is now available to Office for Mac insiders (v 16.29 build 190830 and […]
Word, Excel and PowerPoint have options to stop people from changing a document, making them ‘read only’ in tech speak. These options protect your documents from unauthorized editing or even reading them at all. There are different levels of protection, they are all under File | Info | Protect Document. While they are mostly talked […]
Tucked away in Microsoft Office is a little used tag ‘Content Status’ or just ‘Status’ that could help manage and find Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents in organizations. Unfortunately, Content Status is only used once in Office features. It’s supported in Windows Explorer if you know where to look. On the Mac it’s all but […]
PowerPoint has many choices for printed/PDF handouts to go with a presentation. Here’s a guide to the options spread in different places on the PowerPoint ribbon and menus. Quick PowerPoint Handouts Under File | Print is the basic handouts option to print slides and lines for people to handwrite notes. However those options do NOT […]
In long overdue news, Microsoft has finally agreed to synchronize email signatures between Outlook on different platforms. The news came in the form of a post on the Uservoice site: “We’re happy to report that we’re working on sync’ing signatures across devices. More details to come as we have them.” It’s not much. No timeline, […]
The ultimate in PowerPoint Handouts aren’t made in PowerPoint at all. Link a presentation to handouts in Microsoft Word, where you will then have all the Word formatting options available to you. You’re forgiven for not knowing this option existed, because it’s not immediately obvious and you need to go several steps down in menus […]
