Lost in the ‘news’ about Paint is the confirmation that Outlook Express is dead. Like the Norwegian Blue Parrot it’s going to join the choir invisible. Microsoft will be dropping Outlook Express from the supplied programs in the upcoming Windows 10 Fall Creators update. Outlook Express is finally getting removed. It’s long since been replaced […]
Paint is gone, it’s not gone yet and then it’ll survive – Microsoft Paint spent some time in limbo. The headlines were confused and sometimes downright wrong. After the dust had settled, Paint was given a long term life. Microsoft Paint has been around for over 3 decades. There are many, better, drawing programs out […]
Why are there no Windows 10 Live Tiles that work with Microsoft Outlook? Why doesn’t Windows ‘play nice’ with Outlook, when they are made by the same company? Live Tiles are those animated blocks on the Start Menu which, in theory, can display latest messages, contacts and calendar items. The Start Menu also acts as […]
“Word Processing is Dead” makes for a snappy op-ed headline but it doesn’t tell the whole story. The Australian Financial Review has tales of Word woe from the legal community. Badly formatted contracts, especially inconsistent numbering, is the bane of many organizations. “…work was done by dedicated operators with expert training. But this is 2017, […]
The improved Accessibility Check in Word 2016 for Windows (Office 365) can be some help in the problem of inconsistent levels or numbering. Messed up numbering is an issue in contracts and other legal documents. Go to File | Info | Check for issues | Check for Accessibility and scroll down to the tips section. […]
Microsoft Office can read aloud, talk or speak the text of documents to you. It’s possible in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote. Computer speaking text is mainly suggested for various disabled users under the ‘Accessibility’ name. But ‘Speak’ is also useful if you’re just tired of reading the screen or are proof-reading from another […]
On Macintosh computers, the speaking is entirely done by the macOS not Office for Mac To enable speech to text, go to System Preferences | Accessibility and look for the Speech option. Speak selected text when the key is pressed – lets you choose a shortcut key.
The latest Microsoft financial results mark an important milestone in the way we pay them for Office software. “For the first time, Office 365 Commercial revenue surpassed revenue from our traditional licensing business.” – Amy Hood, Microsoft CFO. More cloud money MSFT got more money from Office ‘subscriptions’ than from one-time ‘perpetual’ and other traditional […]
The Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for Windows 10 computers are hiding from the Microsoft Store. Here’s how to get them. Word, Excel and PowerPoint have ‘mobile’ versions that run on Windows 10 devices for full PC’s, tablets and Windows phones. Here are the links you need, since Microsoft has hidden them. Word Excel PowerPoint […]
Microsoft’s annual giveaway of ebooks is on again. Thousands of free downloads, including Office related ebooks. The full list is on the Microsoft blog. We’ve copied the Microsoft Office related titles into a easily searchable list below. Most are in PDF format with a few in MOBI (Kindle), EPUB or XPS format. Modesty (almost) […]
The Irish are talking about ‘pink text’ used in a court ordered apology. Text that’s so faint it’s almost impossible to read. Here’s how to do it and post on a web site. TheLiberal.ie site was ordered to apologize for copyright breaches and did it by posting an image of the required text in light […]
Yet again, Microsoft has released buggy patches for Office and Outlook. We have details of the faulty patches and the bugs they’ve added to Outlook. This time it’s Outlook users who have the hassle and time-wasting dealing with Microsoft’s bungling. All these security updates cause bugs in Outlook, various versions. Of course, Microsoft won’t admit […]
There are many ways to save money on buying or renting Microsoft Office / Office 365 here’s just some. Don’t auto-renew, Home Use program, Military discount, University, School / Education and never, ever buy from Microsoft directly. You don’t have to be a special person to get a discount. Having a pulse and making a […]
Microsoft’s test area ‘Garage’ has released a PowerPoint tool which promises to translate into multiple languages your speech to accompany a presentation. Presentation Translator translates your spoken remarks and posts them as subtitles on the slide deck. Source: Microsoft Source: Microsoft It does more than show subtitles on the big screen. Audience members can use […]
Excel is main focus of this month’s security patches from Microsoft. It’s a familiar story, so Microsoft recycles their stock phrases from similar security lapses in the past. A ‘specially crafted’ document can cause a ‘memory corruption’ in Office. The July 2017 patches fix not one, but two separate design errors in Office. All supported […]
Word 2013 has a new non-security update for our Dutch friends … but what it does is a mystery. In typical Microsoft fashion, all they’ll say is that KB3213567 “… improves some translations for the Dutch version of Word 2013. “ which could mean almost anything. It doesn’t appear to be changes to the Dutch […]
A political corruption row is brewing in Pakistan with questions about Word and the Calibri font. We dug into the Office Watch archives for more info than simply checking Wikipedia. A report into possible corruption by the Prime Ministers daughter, suggests that some documents were faked. The documents are dated in 2006 but use the […]
Microsoft proudly added accessibility features to Office 2016 for Windows, in particular ‘Alt Text’. Pity it’s not been refined and fixed once the hype died down. Earlier this year, Microsoft added an ‘Alt Text’ feature to Office which tries to automatically suggest alternative text for visually impaired readers. Right click on an image and choose […]
Images inserted into your Word documents are being automatically uploaded to Microsoft for the accessibility ‘Alt Text’ feature. Even if the image and document are saved on your computer, not cloud storage. It’s a hidden ‘feature’ in Office 2016 for Windows desktop (Office 365 subscribers). Earlier this year, Microsoft added an ‘Alt Text’ feature to […]
In 2016, Office was a lot more profitable than Windows. An analysis by The Motely Fool shows how important Microsoft Office is to their bottom line. A. Lot. Office is the cash cow What stands out is how profitable Microsoft Office has become. The push to ‘subscriptions’ (effectively software rental) has been a very smart […]
No cloud service is perfect, what should you do to prepare for a temporary or permanent breakdown of your OneDrive or Office 365 cloud storage? Microsoft pushes use of OneDrive to store all your documents and images. That suits Microsoft’s strategy but isn’t necessarily a good thing for customers. Office 365 occasionally goes ‘off the […]
What can you do if there’s an outage or breakdown in Office 365 email cloud services? Over the last few weeks Office 365 has broken down a few times. These outages have and will happen to even the best of cloud services. You can keep on working until Microsoft fixes the problem, if you’re prepared. […]
Yes, you can make your own ‘Time” magazine cover, to put up in your house, office, den, golf clubs or whatever. Our Eye-Catching Signs with Word includes over 50 Word documents ready to use as signage. Two of them are magazine covers complete with title, border, sub-titles even a ‘date’. You can change the photo, […]
We won’t bore you with yet another article about today’s Petya ransomware attack We do have some notes and reassurance that arise. Security Patches Microsoft have this one covered. Back in April 2017 they released relevant patches for Windows Vista and Windows 7, 8.1 and Windows 10 plus server editions Also important patches for Office […]
It was incredibly stupid of Microsoft to boast about the supposed security of their new Windows 10S. That boast inspired hackers to prove them wrong but no-one expected a quick downfall with Office providing the ‘backdoor’ into Windows. Microsoft started it all by claiming that: ” No known ransomware works against Windows 10S – our latest and […]
The Oxford English Dictionary has new last entry on the final page of the ‘Z’ chapter. As Office nerds, we immediately went to see how Microsoft Office handles this obscure word and its predecessor. Turns out Office handles the ‘last word’ very well. The new last entry is Zyzzyva (“zih-zih-vah”) which replaced the previous finalist. […]
Get Microsoft Office for no money, nil, ziltch, nada, bugger all. It’s legal, easy and this article explains the many options available. We’ve not talking about ‘Office wannabes’ but Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote from Microsoft itself. They won’t have all the features of Office 2016 for Windows desktop. There’s usually enough for most purposes […]
The Royal Shakespeare Company has made its image archive available online, adding another resource for PowerPoint and Word users. The pictures go back 80 years of the company’s history and features images from (now) famous names like Sir Patrick Stewart, Dame Judy Dench and many more. Beyond the stage You could certainly use the images […]
It would useful to make a draft email on a phone or tablet (maybe some quick notes) to later revise and send from Outlook for Windows/Mac. Alas, that’s not possible because of some curious decisions by Microsoft and other device makers. The Drafts folder isn’t always available to sync with the main mailbox. Often draft […]
A new way to infect your computer, via PowerPoint and simply hovering your mouse over a web link. It’s a malicious PowerShell script inside a PowerPoint file. Either a .PPSX (Microsoft PowerPoint Open XML Slide Show) or .PPS (PowerPoint Show ) file. When the PPSX/PPS file is opened, Office will switch to Protected View to protect […]
Each year Office-Watch.com has a little fun seeing how Microsoft Word’s dictionary compares to the winners of the Scripps (US) National Spelling Bee. Word did better in 2017 than past years. Still, no chance of Word reaching the finals in 2013, 2014, 2015 , 2016 and now 2017 despite being much older than any of […]
Support and patches for Office 2011 for Mac have only a few months left to run Mainstream supports ends on 10 October 2017 That date is based on the release of Service Pack 3 on 29 January 2013 plus a special extension by Microsoft. According to Microsoft the 21 month extension was “… to provide […]
Microsoft has released an interesting new tool for Office 2013/2016 which promises to be a major improvement on current ‘speech to text’ options. Most media have just reported Microsoft’s hype, we’ve actually tested Dictate and here’s what we’ve found. What makes Dictate different is the use of Cortana voice recognition technology. It uses the same […]
Here’s how you start writing an Outlook email drafts on one computer and later continue writing it on another machine. If you’re using Office 365 hosting or Exchange Server with Outlook for Windows/Mac only a little tweak is necessary. For others, there are workarounds. We do this often. Most commonly starting an email on one […]
Browser based email is a great standby in case your main email program, like Outlook, goes wrong or the mailbox connection doesn’t work. Here’s how to find the webmail setting for Office 365 or Exchange Server mailboxes. Webmail for Office 365 or Exchange Server mailboxes is called ‘Outlook Web App’ or ‘Outlook Web Access’. Known […]
It’s expected that today (15 June 2017), Microsoft will release ‘Office in the Windows Store’ as a new way to buy Office. Understand the differences between it and ‘Office 2016 for Windows’ or the Windows 10 / Modern apps for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The new release is not just a different way to […]
Most color printers have a secret tracking or forensic code added to every page that lets governments and others know when and where the page was printed. It’s just one result of last week’s NSA leak and later arrest. One piece of evidence against Reality Winner was the secret code on the pages she allegedly […]
Just a few months after a privacy warning about Docs.com, the Microsoft document sharing site is to close. 15 December 2017 The closure is happening on 15 December 2017, so there’s plenty of time to make the move. All files and documents in your docs.com account will be deleted on that date. Microsoft has created […]
This is a really screwy error message. You try to start an Office desktop program and are stopped with the message ‘This app can’t run on your PC’. Here’s the fix. To make it even stranger, some Office programs will work while others say they can’t run? We’ve seen the very latest version of Outlook […]
Microsoft has released ‘guides’ for anyone wanting to move from Google Docs to Office 365. They aren’t guides, they’re sales brochures. There’s not a lot of information to help anyone wanting to move their document, email, calendar and contacts between Google and Microsoft’s cloud services. All this thinly disguised marketing was written by sales people, […]
