Images can now be included in Excel PivotTables which not only makes for better looking PivotTables but more interesting Slicers too. A great contribution from Office Watch reader “AllanC” in New Zealand. With pictures in a PivotTable you can easily make cute slicers like this to show one record (person)
In 2018 Office for Mac took a huge step towards true document compatibility. Font embedding was finally added to Word for Mac (Word 2021, Word 2019 and Word 365 for Mac) and PowerPoint for Mac. Font embedding adds the font details into the document itself. When another computer opens that
Argos, a major UK retailer, is now offering Microsoft 365 Family for £30 less than usual. That’s a great saving for a new, renewal or ‘top-up’ of a Microsoft 365 plan. There’s a little trick to getting this price, we’ll explain. Office Watcher, Julian H, sent us a tip about
The new Aptos range of fonts is only available on Microsoft 365 apps. We investigate what happens when a document, sheet, slide or email with an Aptos font is opened on a computer without Microsoft 365 and the Aptos font range. In short: if Aptos fonts are not available, it’s
Microsoft is changing more than just the font in Microsoft 365, there are also default color scheme and even line changes coming too. Here’s all the proposed changes and how to reverse them. New Default Fonts We’ve already talked about the new default fonts, Aptos and Aptos Display. New default
Microsoft Excel has caught up with the needs of investors by adding automatic refresh of Stock prices and Currency data. Office Watch will explain what’s now possible and its limitations. Don’t get too excited, we’ve waited so long and when Microsoft does respond, the auto-refresh options don’t go far enough,
How to insert the Mount Fuji 🗻 or snow-capped mountain into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Mount Fuji (富士山 or Fujisan) is a Japanese Holy Site and World Heritage Listed. The symbol or emoji 🗻can be used for the famous mountain
Microsoft is making crucial changes to their Microsoft Office 365 Education licenses that will increase costs to many schools and colleges. Office 365 A1 plus – gone! The Office 365 A1 Plus program for Education will be retired by Microsoft on August 1, 2024. A1 Plus included Office desktop apps
The Office Watch head honcho, Peter Deegan, isn’t just a Microsoft Office nerd for over 25 years. He’s been a theatre junkie for even longer and goes to the famous Edinburgh Festivals each year. And each year he’s asked for recommendations and tips. For 2023, he’s publishing some short reviews
Like to know some more about your Microsoft 365 for Windows software license? How long the Office apps will run without an Internet connection? Here’s how to see that hidden license info, how it’s changed and a little good news too. Microsoft 365 software occasionally checks with Microsoft servers to
Here’s how to find out what type of Microsoft Office 365 licence you have with details hidden from the usual About dialog box. We recently showed it’s important for for perpetual non-subscription versions of Office like Office 2021 or Office 2019 to know if the purchase is Retail/Volume or OEM.
There are many different ways to insert a page break into a Microsoft Word document, some are visible and others invisible even with Show All turned on. Luckily, Word has a straightforward way of doing this with a manual or separate Page Break. It’s also possible to associate a page break with the paragraph, which is a lot easier manage page breaks but they are somewhat invisible and it’s not
Every Microsoft Word Style has an option to ‘Automatically Update‘ which sounds great, but can lead to more confusion. Here’s what ‘Automatically Update’ really means, why it’s wise to turn it off and the better alternative. There are many ‘Automatic’ options in Word that are spread all over the place.
A quick and reliable way to update a style within a Microsoft Word document. It works only when you ask it and you can apply a series of changes before updating the style. Update Style to Match Selection We’ve made a series of changes to a paragraph; font size, color
For all the changes Microsoft has made to Search (aka Tell Me), they continue to ignore one basic that would make Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook a lot easier to work with. Here’s some examples of how Microsoft Office search badly needs fixing. Search (formerly called “Tell Me”) usually appears
The Sharing options in Office are changing, yet again with a new ‘sharing experience’ in all Microsoft Office 365 apps for desktop, web and mobile. We’ll explain the changes, including a few options that Microsoft hasn’t mentioned. All the usual Microsoft buzzwords have been recycled to describe these changes; “streamlined”,
Microsoft is making Clipchamp available to their Microsoft 365 commercial customers after limiting access to consumer users for too long. As usual, Microsoft’s announcement has many ‘fine print’ details to annoy paying customers. Clipchamp is Microsoft’s online video editing service. It’s been available to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family customers
Clipchamp, is Microsoft’s video editing software and service. It’s a simple way to create videos easily with text, graphics, effects and transitions. Microsoft 365 consumer customers get extra Clipchamp features. You can try it out here, or download it from the Microsoft Store for Windows. Mac users can get Clipchamp
Here’s how to make a list of all the available fonts on a computer by making a table in Word complete with sample text using each font. It makes a Word table of all the fonts, including sample text like this. VBA features on show The code is fairly straight-forward
Three ways to insert the Recycle symbol ♻ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. There are many different and specialist Recycle symbols. We’ll focus on the standard, generic symbol, officially called “Black Universal Recycling Symbol” in three forms: Emoji or Unicode
Insert the Teardrop-Spoked Asterisk ✻ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Heavy Teardrop-Spoked Asterisk ✻ symbol has a circle in the middle with six ‘teardrop’ spokes around it. It has no specific purpose but is a more decorative alternative to the standard
There’s a nice little Excel function that will calculate the rate of return on any asset like a stock or fund including income/dividends with purchases and sales over time. The secret sauce is XIRR() a function which calculates an internal rate of return with uneven interest or dividend payments. In
Office Lens is a good app for iPhone, iPad and Android devices. If you want to convert photos into a Word document (as text) or PDF, the Office Lens is the way to go. Lens has a wonderful straightening trick that turns an off-center photo into something ‘straight on’ which
An easy and fast way to add pictures into Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. 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