Choosing the sort type is really important and Word doesn’t always guess correctly. Office-Watch.com reader Peter M. reminds us that choose the sort type is really important: Text, Number or Date. “I just thought it worth pointing out that, for example 8, 70, 600 would sort in one order as Text and the reverse order […]
How to sort a list using a hidden or unseen list in Word. Sometimes you want to sort a list in a way that isn’t apparent to the reader. To continue our Apollo theme, here’s a list of the twelve men who walked on the moon with the order they stepped onto the surface. To […]
You can hide a column in Word, all it takes is a little trickery. Sometimes you want to hide a table column in a Word document but according to Microsoft you can’t do it. Here’s how to do it anyway. It’s true that there’s no explicit ‘hide column’ option like in Excel but you can […]
In-depth and clever tricks with sorting in Word. Following our look at different alphabetical orders, here’s a look at the sorting options in Word. You can sort paragraphs, lists and tables in a Word document. Select the list or paragraphs then choose Home | Paragraph | Sort. For tables there’s similar sort options are at […]
How to add and remove data from a PivotTable. Thanks for the great feedback from our article on PivotTables. One concern some of you have is about adding or removing source data after the PivotTable has been created. That’s understandable because the original PivotTable releases where unclear and curiously sensitive about the data ranges used. […]
Why Excel PivotTables get messed up and how to stop it. Time and again we’ve heard from people who try PivotTables and only get nonsense tables. That’s understandable since Microsoft’s hype about PivotTable ignores the basics that we’ll cover in this article. You’ve probably seen a Microsoft demonstration of PivotTables where it looks sooooo easy. […]
How to quickly insert symbols in Word without taking your fingers off the keyboard. Inserting Symbols into Word documents is a pain, go up to the ribbon Insert | Symbols | Symbol at the very least … or you can use a trick from the 20th century to keep your fingers on the keyboard. Type […]
A Windows feature that’s very useful for Microsoft Office users. Character Map has been in Windows for as long as we’d like to remember and it’s done right. Over the years, the ‘softies who’ve worked on it have given some thought to the needs of people trying to find and preview characters. You’ll find Character […]
A simple, practical and non-scary example of how Excel PivotTables can work for you. Excel’s PivotTables are a great feature but one that seems way too hard for most of us … so here’s a simple and practical example of how PivotTables can help. A little fear of PivotTables is understandable. It’s one of those […]
A funny example of how you can’t trust the spelling and grammar checks in Word. We laughed at this sign, seen in a Tesco’s supermarket in the UK. Guess what – according to Word 2013 that entire document has no grammar mistakes at all! Even ‘incontinence’ doesn’t get a contextual spelling query. It’s the same […]
Word: how to find the character code used for a particular letter or symbols. Last week we talked about the Unicode v7.0 symbols and how to use symbols in Word. With over 100,000 characters in the Unicode specification, it’s important to know the character code number for the symbol you want. That raises the question, […]
How Word can warn you about the ‘Oxford’ or serial comma’? The Oxford comma is one of those grammatical things that most people don’t worry about but can get others soooo excited. It’s a question of whether to add a comma at the end of a list for example: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook OR […]
Another easy way to get images into Word and other Office documents. Last week we mentioned a faster way to get a scanned image into Word via the ‘scan to clipboard’ option available in some scanning software. There are similar options available for copying existing image files into Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents as well […]
A quicker way to do some regular tasks in Outlook. Quick Steps is that big block in the middle of the Outlook 2010 and 2013 Home tab Quick Steps let you customize and combine Outlook functions into a single click without resorting to VBA. The defaults are meant to be examples of what is possible. […]
Can you scan a picture or document directly into Word? Back in the day, you could click a button in Word to scan a document or image and drop it into a document. Can you still do that? Alas no. Microsoft dropped its imaging services within Windows and so Word lost the scan button. The […]
Great table formatting options not available from Microsoft Word’s Table Style gallery. Word’s Table Style gallery is a tempting selection of table formats but it doesn’t show you all the options to make your table look good. Some of these variations are right there on the ribbon, others are buried a bit deeper. The Table […]
Combine adjacent cells into a single cell or split a cell in two. Welcome to ‘Merge Cells’ where you can combine adjacent cells into a single cell. It’s very handy for table formatting tricks and other unusual situations like a longer than common text label. Or a three row heading like this with various merged […]
Use Word tables to do formatting tricks or make complex formats easily. There’s more to Word tables than just showing grids of information like this: Tables have all sorts of little tricks in them and let you do clever things in Word. Here’s a look at some of those tricks … Using hidden tables Tables […]
Why RE and FW are the best options for email subjects When you reply or forward a message your email program will add a prefix to the subject line. The question is – do you choose the standard ‘English’ prefixes RE: and FW: or your local equivalents? There’s plenty of alternatives to RE and FW […]
What makes a conversation in Outlook? In the Outlook world a conversation is a series of emails with the same subject line or conversation ID. It’s as simple as that. In the past these were called email ‘threads’. Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 can group messages by conversation or thread. For most people the conversation […]
How to change the date format in Excel Online The default date format in Excel has always been a mystery to newcomers and its stranger in Excel Online (the new name for Excel Web Apps). To change the default date format for display and date entry for Excel Online, go to your Microsoft account: Go […]
How to get rid of an email conversation or thread. Sometimes you get emails on a topic that doesn’t matter to you and is cluttering up your Inbox. Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 have a fairly simple solution – the Ignore button. Ignore tells Outlook to move all existing and future emails with a certain subject […]
Outlook tricks you may not have considered for New, Reply, Reply All, Forward and Resend. New / Compose The simple and easy one first. Click on the New Email button to start a new message. At the very least fill in the TO, Subject and some message text then click Send. There can be more […]
Sharing a document with Office 2013 and OneDrive Sharing a document online for people to view and edit is pretty easy. Here’s how … Create your document in Office 2013 and save it to your OneDrive account. Tip: turn on Track Changes before uploading so you can see who edited the document and what changed. […]
How to see which language is set in Word. When you have a multi-lingual Word document, you can see the current language on the status bar below the document – but changing the language is another matter. You can add a language selector to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) like this: You can use this […]
How to get a message when certain RSS feeds are updated As you probably know, it’s possible to get an alert or an action when certain email messages arrive into Outlook using the Rules feature. Office-Watch.com shows how to do the same thing for an RSS feed. It will let you filter down a larger […]
A simple guide to sending files via Skydrive / OneDrive There are many ways to send files that are too big for email (usually over 20MB). In this article we’ll look at how to do that with Skydrive. Skydrive, soon to be called, OneDrive is Microsoft’s public cloud storage service. Microsoft Office 2013 and Windows […]
How to recover deleted files in OneDrive. Skydrive/OneDrive retains deleted files for 30 days or until the Recycle Bin exceeds 10% of your allowed storage space. This feature works much the same way as the Recycle Bin in Windows and it’s called ‘Recycle Bin’ down on the bottom left of the web page. Select a […]
Upload photos automatically from smartphones. One of the features of Skydrive/OneDrive is the ‘Camera Roll’ or ‘Camera Backup’, it’s a simple and automatic way to copy photos between some devices. Is it ‘Camera Roll’ or ‘Camera Backup’? Microsoft uses both terms, depending on where you look. Most commonly from your smartphone (Apple or Windows) to […]
Getting the free Dropbox software. The free Dropbox program is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It will synchronize your cloud storage with local folders, saving you the hassle of manually uploading/downloading each file. All the file transfers happen in the background. Dropbox software is the best and easiest way to use Dropbox storage. Most […]
A simple guide to sending files via Dropbox. There are many ways to send files that are too big for email (usually over 20MB). In this article we’ll look at how to do that with Dropbox either sending a ‘one-off’ file or regularly exchanging files with someone else. Dropbox is very popular, generally free and well […]
Use Dropbox for sharing Office documents and collaboration on editing, but it’s not ideal. Another use for Dropbox is sharing Office documents and collaboration on editing, but it’s not ideal. With Office 2013 you can do this better with Skydrive because Microsoft’s own cloud storage allows simultaneous collaboration – in other words more than one […]
If you put a file up on Dropbox, how does anyone know it’s there? If you put a file up on Dropbox, how does anyone know it’s there? Obviously you can tell them, by email, phone or even face-to-face! Or they can check the shared folder for anything new. Happily there are better options. Dropbox […]
How to recover files deleted from Dropbox storage Dropbox retains deleted files for 30 days. You can see those files from the web site. Click on the ‘Show deleted files’ button top-right. Click on the ‘open’ trash can to hide deleted files. Click on a deleted file to see the options available. You can Restore […]
One of the best Dropbox features – Camera Upload One of the nice features of Dropbox is the ‘Camera Roll’, it’s a simple and automatic way to copy photos between devices. Most commonly from your smartphone (Apple, Android) to your computer. It works automatically and often takes only seconds from taking the photo to it […]
2014 looks like the year of long movie titles with colons – here’s how to save yourself some typing. More and more movies are sequels and that means longer and longer movie titles. Most have colons because the studios don’t trust us to figure out that a movie is a sequel. Coming in 2014 we […]
How to number lines and paragraphs in Word. When you’re discussing a speech or other document ‘in progress’ you might want to number the lines or paragraphs for easy reference “Please change paragraphs 6, 7, 21 and 27”. Sure, these days there’s a lot of linking and online collaboration but there’s also a place for […]
Why and How to remove words from the main Microsoft Office dictionary. Sometimes the supplied Office dictionary has words you don’t want or you’d like a warning about. Here’s how to put the red squiggly line under words that would otherwise be OK according to Microsoft. Why? Why would you want to remove words from […]
Keep your calendar clear by hiding private appointments like reminders to take medicine. Sometimes we have appointments or events that we want to keep private or at least hide from the regular calendar views. You can have appointments in Outlook which will pop-up reminders when necessary but not show up in your regular calendar view. […]
How to have email signatures for all the different roles in your life. Most of us wear different ‘hats’ – a family member, friend, person, employee or volunteer. Each of those roles can have a different Outlook email signature. Which signature you use depends on the situation and, perhaps, the email account you’re using. Clarification: […]
