Windows Sets would have been an important innovation for Office users but has now been killed by Microsoft. Sets was a proposed and tested Windows feature which would let you group different programs together in a tabbed interface. Think of the familiar tabs in a browser except each tab had your choice of programs. That […]
Readers asked us about Window 10 naming, version and builds after Overdue changes to Windows 10 available now. Some told us we were wrong while others are confused, with both groups quoting various Microsoft sources for their ‘truth’. The sad fact is Windows naming, version and builds are a confused and inconsistent mess. Microsoft itself […]
Like any other text in Word, the appearance of all your captions can be changed by modifying the style that is applied to them or selecting the text and formatting manually. See Adding Captions in Word Caption Style All captions use the ‘Caption’ style, so modifying that style will modify the format of all past and […]
Captions let you add autonumbered labels under most Word objects including pictures (figures), tables or equations. Captions can be combined into a list of all the figures/tables/equations in the document, along with their page numbers. As usual in Word, there are many options beyond the simple adding of captions and some ‘gotchas’ as well. See Changing […]
There’s a TV show just starting its last season, maybe you’ve heard of it <g>? Here’s how to get the Game of Thrones look in Word documents and PowerPoint slides. Plenty of people have borrowed the Game of Thrones or GoT look, including a certain US President. All these uses are contrary to various trademarks […]
The upcoming update to Windows 10 represents a major shift by Microsoft. While the company won’t admit it, the October 2018 update was a disaster. So many bugs in the update, including some that destroyed customers files. Somewhat chastened, the Win10 May 2019 update is being deployed in a much more cautious way. The May […]
Microsoft has admitted a security breach which allowed hackers to access the accounts and data of customers. The admission from Microsoft isn’t complete and the hackers say it’s worse than the company is saying. Who is affected? Some people with a free Microsoft accounts like Outlook.com, Msn.com Hotmail.com etc. Microsoft says that a ‘limited’ number […]
The May 2019 update to Windows 10 includes a long-awaited and important addition, an updated Emoji Panel. What a pity that it totally sucks and is incredibly dumb. Emoji Panel is better than what we had before (nothing) but not by a lot. We’re talking about the Emoji Panel or ‘keyboard’ which appears in Windows […]
Word has settings to automatically change the case of words that you type, fix common capitalization typing problems add items of your own to have capitalized the way you want them as you type. Word also has options to manually Change Case in Microsoft Word. The settings are in the AutoCorrect dialog at File | […]
If, while typing, you notice that Word has automatically changed capitalization of something you did not want changed, you can correct this easily as you type. Hover your mouse over the part of the word that has been automatically changed. A blue line will appear under the changed part. We typed AUtomatic and Word immediately […]
Google has announced that their G Suite customers will be able to edit and collaborate with Microsoft Office documents. It will be available to all G Suite users by the end of May 2019. Source: Google. Until now, a clumsy Office compatibility app for Chrome allowed Microsoft Office documents to be edited in Google Docs, […]
Slack, the popular collaboration service, has added better integration with Office 365 hosting and OneDrive. Office 365 tools were inevitable because Microsoft now has Teams, its own rival to Slack. There are two new tools, Outlook email and calendar plus nice previews of Microsoft Office documents. Office document preview Now included in Slack is better […]
It’s income tax time in the USA and that means a new round of email scams and infected Excel documents to watch out for. IBM Security Intelligence reports on a series of scam emails courtesy of the Trickbot hackers. All the emails look like legitimate messages from big companies like Paychex, a payroll provider and […]
Microsoft continues to struggle with their support for Japanese Era date format in Excel. The new Imperial Era, ‘Reiwa’ is known but the necessary changes for Excel aren’t released yet. New Japanese Imperial Era changes in Excel and Office explains how to add the new Reiwa era without waiting for Microsoft’s patch. Meantime, yet more […]
The lesser known version of SVG icons is the smaller, compressed, SVGZ format. Here’s how to use SVGZ in Office 365/2019 despite no direct support for the format. Most SVG icons arrived uncompressed in plain XML text using the .SVG extension. We’ve shown before how SVG’s can be edited in any text editor to make […]
How to insert the different Ellipsis … marks into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Ellipsis … symbol is used for a gap or break in some text, usually to drop out some irrelevant text or speech. The same applies in maths e.g. 1,1,2,3 …. 377 […]
Change Case options in Word, like many Word features goes beyond the obvious choices on the ribbon. Alter the upper/lower case of words, phrases or more. ‘change case’ can become ‘Change Case’ or ‘CHANGE CASE’ without retyping. There are four ways to change the case of existing text in Word: Keyboard shortcut Change Case button […]
Changing the case upper/lower for text through all of a Word document is easy because the default settings don’t need changing. We’ve already talked about the manual Change Case options in Word, now we’ll move onto bulk changes. Sometimes the spelling of a product or brand has peculiar case choices like iPad, eBay or reCAPTCHA. […]
Microsoft has never been great about documenting patches and bug fixes but this month they have sunk to a new low. Maybe it’s a delayed April Fool’s prank with Microsoft ‘taking the Mickey‘ or treating Office customers with contempt? Sustained Engineering isn’t sustained Maintaining Office software is the thankless job of the Office Sustained Engineering […]
We hope you enjoy our little 1st April satire, Office 366. Office 366 was fun and, along the way, reminded people of some important points about Office 365 plans. ‘Office 366’ is the, not impossible, idea that Microsoft would make Office 365 customers pay for leap day in 2020. https://office366extra.com/ the Office 366 announcement including […]
There are shortcuts that automatically format bold and italic text in Word. The same shortcuts and more work in WhatsApp texting as well. AutoFormatting Bold and Italics as you type In Microsoft Word and Outlook it’s possible to make words bold or italic as you’re typing. For touch-typists that’s faster than stopping to highlight text […]
The current Google Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office will stop working near the end of June. There’s an improved update already available for some customers and an alternative for the rest. If you’re using the Google Drive plug-in, you’ll start seeing a warning about the plugins death on 26 June 2019. Source: Google There are […]
An update for Excel users on the upcoming new Imperial Era in Japan and how to type the Reiwa era name in Office documents The Japanese government has now announced the new Era name that will coincide with new Emperor. From 1 May 2019 we’ll be in the 令和or Reiwa era. This might not seem […]
Some people might be surprised about Office 366 and the loss of services for a day, but they shouldn’t be. It’s a demonstration of the much tighter control Microsoft has over Office 365 customers. Office 366 is a price slug for Office 365 customers Office 366 exclusive interview The switch to an annual payment, so-called […]
Converting SVG icons into JPG is essential for older Word and Office versions that don’t have native icon/SVG support. SVG’s are great with many advantages for Office 365 and Office 2019 users. Not everyone has the latest Microsoft Office or shares documents with others who have earlier versions of Office. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) are […]
Office Watch met with Office 365 spokesman, Morrocos Fieffit, for a few drinks and this exclusive interview about the changes and fees with Office 366. Quickly, what’s Office 366? “Office 366 is an enhancement to Office 365 to deal with the extra day in the 2020 leap year. Office 365 is a 365 day per […]
Office 366 is the latest ‘innovation’ and price gouge for Office 365 customers. It’s an important change to Office 365 with costs for everyone and dread consequences if you don’t pay. It’s horrible news to start a new week. Office 365 users are waking up to this as Monday 1st starts across the globe. Without […]
Today we’re seeing plenty of mentions of a ‘great deal’ that isn’t ‘Office 365 Home plus Amazon Gift Card for $100’ is NOT correct and NOT a good deal at all. For starters, the price is $149 not $100. Sample headline and text from just one prominent tech web site. Click through to Amazon and […]
One of the first major Word viruses, the Melissa virus, is 20 years old. It’s amazing to see how much and how little has changed over two decades. Office viruses today follow much the same pattern as they did back in the 20th Century. Melissa was a Word macro virus which infected computers then spread […]
In Japan there are two amazing uses of Excel. Excel used for displaying train timetables and to make beautiful works of art. The Michelangelo of Excel Tatsuo Horiuchi has become the Michelangelo of Excel. On retirement he wanted to turn to art but didn’t want the expense of paint, brushes etc. He turned to his […]
Microsoft unleashed the dread Clippy, then quickly buried the paperclip back where it belongs. For a short time, a version of the infamous Clippit paperclip (better known as Clippy) reappeared. It was added as an option for Microsoft Teams service then quickly withdrawn. It all started with a leak by the reliable WalkingCat who posted […]
The Word Style Gallery doesn’t have to be left the way Microsoft supplies it. Fix the Gallery to make it work better for you. Microsoft Office often has menus and options aren’t designed for the customer. Instead they are setup for Microsoft’s needs in ‘out of the box’ demonstrations or to showcase as many choices […]
Rename Word styles or give them alternative names/aliases. Sometimes you’ve got no choice but to make an alias because the original style name is fixed. Any style can have an alternative name which appears in the Style Gallery. That’s a useful trick because there’s limited space for the style name on the Gallery and the […]
Many inbuilt Word styles are hidden until they are used but there’s a way to force hidden styles to appear right away. The most obvious example of ‘Hide until used’ styles are the Heading styles. Word initially shows only the first three headings ‘Heading 1’, ‘Heading 2’ and (drumroll) ‘Heading 3’. Hidden away are Heading […]
Laundry care symbols you see on clothes tags can be typed or inserted into Word, Excel or PowerPoint in various different ways. Laundry care symbols can be for laundry area signs or for fun like this t-shirt. T-shirt seen in a Zurich clothing store Or alternative symbols in a PowerPoint slide. All five symbols were […]
Which font to use if emulating a true laundry care or clothing text label in Word, PowerPoint or other Office program? We’ve already talked about how to put standard laundry care symbols in Word, Excel or PowerPoint but what about the text that usually goes with the icons? In our research we couldn’t find any […]
Microsoft is rolling out a ‘patch’ to Windows 7 which is really a series of annoying ads for Windows 10. The ads are reminders that Win7 support ends in mid-January 2020 as encouragement to buy Windows 10. Here’s how to stop the patch or the ads it installs. See Microsoft starts ‘reminders’ for Office 2010 and […]
Soon Windows 7 and perhaps Office 2010 users will start seeing on-screen reminders that support for the two products is ending with sales pitches for Office 365 and Windows 10. Windows 7 support, including security updates, ends on 14 January 2020. Office 2010 support, according to Microsoft, ends ‘shortly thereafter’. It’s actually 9 months later […]
What can you do when Outlook won’t connect to a new mailbox no matter what you try? Long time Office Watch reader, Phil, found himself with an especially stubborn Outlook which would not connect to his new mailbox. He’s changed Office 365 mail servers so had to reconnect Outlook to the new mailboxes for him […]
Thanks to everyone who tried out Microsoft Forms by filling out our example survey. Here are the results. Our form was mainly an example of what’s possible in Microsoft Forms as part of Microsoft Forms – a quick look and sample We took the opportunity to get a better idea of what Office software our […]
