Office’s Document Inspector is supposed to remove or scrub information being accidentally included in Word, Excel or PowerPoint files. It’s not perfect and misses out on some critical hidden information that can give away secrets. Details in images, layers and even highlighting. Document Inspector is at File | Info in
PowerPoint has, finally, added shortcuts to quickly make bullet or numbered lists without using the ribbon. Here’s the full list of typing shortcuts and how to turn them off. In Word, you’re probably familiar with a list being automatically created if you type * or 1. at the start of
Date handling in Excel can be confusing and it’s not your fault. Microsoft could do a better job. Here’s a quick guide to how Excel handles dates and date arithmetic with the settings you should know. What you see isn’t what’s saved What Excel shows in a cell is only
How to number lines and paragraphs in Microsoft Word and format the numbers with a different font, size or color. Plus some ‘wish list’ features that are missing from Word. When you’re discussing a speech or other document ‘in progress’ you might want to number the lines or paragraphs for
How to insert the Construction or Roadwork Sign 🚧 emoji into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Construction, Roadwork or Warning Sign 🚧 symbol can be used in PowerPoint slides and in other Office documents sometimes to mark WIP or “Work in
Speed up your work by adding and changing keyboard shortcuts to Word commands, styles, fonts and even symbols that aren’t on the keyboard. You can even override or remove Word’s in-built shortcuts so they do what you want (or nothing). We’ll show how to find the more useful and interesting
Make better and faster images with Bing Image Creation, Dall-E and other AI tools using a few simple tricks. Here’s some ideas and comments with plenty of examples. If you’ve tried Microsoft Designer, Dall-E or other AI image makers, Bing Image Creation is nothing new and works the same way.
Microsoft has released their version of an AI image maker (like Dall-E) called, imaginatively, Bing Image Creation. We’ll explain how to access and use the preview with some examples of freshly made images and how the Content Warning/Block works. All these images are original, made by Bing Image Creation from
Microsoft Loop is coming for everyone and is now in a public preview of this new way to collaborate online. Here’s how to get into the Loop preview and how to get started exploring this new tech. Loop components are live mini-documents, worksheets or lists that people can collaborate on
Looking back on Dumb Ways to Die – video and song. Links to the official site, song download, karaoke version, animated GIFs, parodies, full lyrics and the unexpected cameo from former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson! Here’s the all too cute original Dumb Ways to Die video from 2012. Dumb
According to Microsoft, their AI integration Copilot is “A whole new way to work” and will “Transform the way we work”. That’s true, but not as quickly or as well as their overstated hype suggests. Here’s why I’m cautious about the Copilot promises. Microsoft is rushing both publicity and release
Here’s what to do if you get the dreaded Microsoft 365 / Office 2021 or Office 2019 Unlicensed Product / View only error message. Assuming you have a current Office 2021/2019 or Microsoft 365 subscription (we’ll show you how to check that, below). The unlicenced product warning usually happens if
Use these Microsoft Word options to quickly find words and word variations that you might have thought impossible. Finding words that sound the same or past, present and future tenses in the one search or ignoring punctuation to find “its” and “it’s” in one search These options are in the
How to insert the Reversed Question Mark / Irony ⸮ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Reversed Question Mark / Irony ⸮ symbol has been proposed to denote irony or sarcasm within text. Or for rhetorical questions. It’s never really
Dyslexie is a special font that’s easier for dyslexic people to read than standard type. It’s free for personal use and easy to include in Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint for Windows or Mac. The font is specially designed, making it easier for the eye/brain to distinguish similar letters. For
The Microsoft Copilot announcements reach new heights, or lows of Microsoft Hype™ depending on your point of view. We’re used to reading lots of ‘excitement’ from Microsoft that’s impressive sounding but essentially meaningless. Perhaps this pre-announcement for Copilot was mostly about Microsoft wanting to maintain the appearance of being ahead
Strip away the hype and vague promises for the upcoming Microsoft Copilot and see what these AI features can do for you. As regular Office Watch readers know, we prefer to talk about products we can use ourselves. Until we can do that, we’ve stripped away the considerable Copilot hype
More is coming out about the latest, critical Outlook security bug and how embarrassingly easy it is for hackers to infiltrate an unguarded computer. What Microsoft blandly calls an “Outlook Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability” is truly dangerous and is so easily done that it’s likely to be quickly and widely
Irish Gaelic, Gaeilge or just Irish is available in Microsoft Word Translator and other translate services from Microsoft. Here’s how to download the Irish spell check and other proofing tools. Irish Gaelic is the first official language of the Republic. English is more commonly used and the second official language.
An early peek at Microsoft Copilot, a new part of Microsoft 365 that’s so new it’s not yet available to “Insiders”. We’ll carefully look at Copilot in PowerPoint which can make a whole slide deck based on an existing Office document. The ever-reliable Walking Cat has leaked an image and
Here’s five fonts, free to use, to decorate your St Patrick’s Day documents or slides in Microsoft Office. They are all compatible with Microsoft Office both Windows and Mac Let’s start with three traditional Celtic style fonts. Irish Uncialfabeta Download Kells Unical Download Celtic Still Celtic style but curvier with
Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) already have some Irish St Patrick’s Day themed graphics. Here’s a guide to what’s available for Shamrock, Four-leaf Clover, Leprechaun hats, pot of gold and Guinness graphics plus the exact Green and Orange colors to use. Along the way we’ll do our bit
Of course, there are emoji suitable for St Patrick’s Day; four leaf clover, shamrock, top hat, two for beer and a rainbow. Here they are, how they look on different devices and the codes to find them. Emoji for St Patrick’s Day Like all emoji, use with care on web
Tucked away in Microsoft Office is a little used tag ‘Content Status’ or just ‘Status’ that could help manage and find Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents in organizations. Unfortunately, Content Status is only used once in Office features. It’s supported in Windows Explorer if you know where to look. On