“Microsoft ” will never cold-call you. If you get an unexpected call about “Windows errors,” “Defender alerts,” or subscription refunds, it’s a tech-support scam. The safest move is simple: hang up, don’t say a word, and never read out codes or grant remote access. We show the warning signs, what
Make sure your Microsoft Word documents look the same everywhere by embedding fonts, just in case the right fonts aren’t installed on recipients’ systems. How to embed fonts in Word on both Windows and Mac plus the options and alternatives for font embedding. Allow anyone opening the document to see
Take control of automatic formatting in Microsoft Word, the AutoFormat and AutoCorrect features. Whether you’re frustrated by Word turning your asterisks into bullet points or want to customize how your documents handle quotes, lists, and spelling corrections, this guide explores every option available. Discover how to manage, disable, and fine-tune
A once common and Microsoft recommended OneNote app is on the way out and has only six months to live. Make sure you’re using the right “OneNote for Windows”. You’re forgiven for being confused because this is a problem entirely of Microsoft’s making. There was a time when Microsoft insisted
Hiding and protecting an Excel worksheet is NOT the same as full encryption. Protected workbooks can be encrypted and not available without the right password. Worksheets protected or hidden with a password are absurdly easy to view whether you have the password or not. Excel has long had the ability
Microsoft’s change to cloud folders only in Microsoft 365 can be stopped in three different ways. Regain full control of your document options, including two options to stop this unloved feature from appearing at all! People are complaining about Microsoft’s change to showing cloud storage only in Microsoft 365, before
If you have Microsoft 365 Classic, watch for a sneaky Microsoft trick to make you pay more. They are automatically renewing Classic plans to more expensive Microsoft 365 plans without notice. That’s not just tricky but possibly illegal. We’ll explain how to keep Microsoft 365 Classic or complain if it’s
Transform your photos into interactive 3D models in seconds with Copilot 3D, Microsoft’s experimental tool makes it easy to generate high-quality 3D models from simple images. Discover how this experimental technology can let you change the view of a person or object. Take a photo of an object with a
Picking a font in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint can be confusing, especially with the existing long, long menus. Now, Microsoft 365 offers a new, easier font picker in two web apps. The new font menu has better search and simple organization, finding the right style for your document or presentation
Excel 365 for Windows and now Excel 365 for Mac and Mobile apps have a great improvement to its drop-down list selector. At long last we have AutoComplete or Search for pull-down lists and you don’t have to do anything to make this work. You can type a search into
Cloud fonts—your next creative shortcut—are now seamlessly integrated into Office 2024/2021 and Microsoft 365. These lightweight fonts download instantly when needed, bypassing the hassle of system installations and making them ready for use across your Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook (and more) apps in mere moments. Whether on Windows or Mac, simply pick
Word and PowerPoint now have two highly anticipated drawing tools, namely, the Fountain Pen and Brush Pen. The Fountain Pen lets you vary line thickness based on stylus speed or pressure for fine detailing, while the Brush Pen adapts stroke width dynamically based on direction, enabling effortless artistic strokes.are getting
Use Microsoft Designer to make compelling but effortlessly professional titles for Word documents, sheets or slides. We’ll explain how to do it, not the simplistic way that Microsoft hypes, but how Designer works in the real world. Start a banner, tweak sizing, customize fonts and colors, then seamlessly insert your
How to lock certain cells in an Excel workbook and allow people to edit ranges of cells. In part one we covered the basics, how locking works with protection to stop unwanted editing of your worksheets while leaving them visible. Now we’ll cover some more, locking certain cells in a
In Excel there are various ways to either protect sheets or cells from access, make a them read-only or totally encrypt the workbook with a strong password. It’s important to understand the difference in Excel between Protect and the stronger Encrypt feature. Excel’s password protection is more complicated than in
Keep a close eye on the increase/decrease decimals buttons on the Excel ribbon because Microsoft has changed them for one version of Excel. Increase / decrease decimals is a very common Excel feature to change the visible accuracy of a number. For example, choosing Currency or Accounting style (which defaults
The new Copilot() function can be great for taking disorganized data like feedback from people and grouping it quickly. We’ll explain the best ways to do that and the pitfalls of relying on AI. One of Microsoft’s examples for Excel 365’s Copilot(() caught our eye and we were pleasantly surprised
Last Monday into Tuesday there was a serious outage that affected Outlook for Windows users. It shows how a failure on Microsoft’s server can stop new Outlook software from working at all. About 5% of global Outlook for Windows customers were unable to open the new Outlook desktop client on
It had to happen, there’s now a Copilot() function in Excel to drop AI responses directly into spreadsheets. It’s a clever trick but, as usual, there are problems that Microsoft overlooks in their hype. Excel’s new COPILOT() function brings AI directly into spreadsheet formulas. Available now in Excel for Windows
How did we make a Word table with a picture background for a recent article – asks an Office Watch friend? She meant this table of Zoom shortcuts for toggling audio and video . There’s a similar table for Teams shortcuts. The quick answer is … we cheated! Word can’t
Miss the classic WordArt from Word’s glory days — the arched text, the rainbow slopes, the wavy headlines that screamed “1990s”? Those old gallery styles are still alive inside every modern version of Word, including Word 365 and Word 2024. They’re just well hidden. Here’s the simple compatibility mode trick
Microsoft has announced a price rise for many volume license customers using one of their time-honored stealth tactics. For as long as anyone can remember, Microsoft changes their pricing plans by a repeating cycle of “customizing” plans then later “simplifying”, “consistent” or “standardizing” the same plans. All of those changes
A simple way to update Microsoft Office 365 for Windows with one click instead of digging into the menus to do it. We’ll show you the simple command line with options that make it possible. Normally, the Windows versions of Microsoft Office 365, Office2024, Office 2021 and Office 2019 all
Microsoft has begun rolling out Python in Excel—the powerful integration that allows users to write Python formulas directly inside Excel—to Microsoft 365 Family and Personal subscribers. That’s great news because Python adds a lot to Excel, making available a lot of features that previously Excel users could only dream about. What’s
