The much unloved Office Clippy will never leave us, thanks to a Javascript library that makes the annoying little critter possible on any web page. We wondered how the WordArt online site got the animated Clippy effect on the web page. Turned out that it wasn’t hard. There’s a free
How to make mail links on web pages or emails open in Outlook for Windows instead of some other mail app. Fix this in Windows 11, Windows 10 and earlier Windows. Sometimes Outlook ‘forgets’ that it’s the place for all email work. You click on an email address and get
Microsoft is hyping a new “Outlook for Windows” as a coming replacement to the familiar Windows program giving both the same “Outlook for Windows” name even though the two programs are completely different and the proposed replacement is quite crippled. Let’s start with a little naming explanation because Microsoft seems
Microsoft’s proposed “Outlook for Windows” replacement has some additional features but still lacks features that most people would think are essential for any mail program. This “New Outlook” can’t do things that the Outlook apps for Windows, Mac, Apple and Android could do from the start. The “New Outlook” is
Here’s eight better but simple 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
There are five different types of style (collection of formatting settings) in Microsoft Word. There’s three styles for text plus Tables and List styles. Paragraph styles Originally, Word only had paragraph styles. Styles could only be applied to an entire paragraph. Any changes to an individual word or phrase had
There are two ways to reveal or un-hide a hidden style, most commonly “Body Text” style. There’s the long-winded Microsoft approved method and the faster way. By default, Body Text style in Microsoft Word is ‘hidden until used’. That seems like a Catch-22, its not visible until it’s used but
The default ‘Body Text’ style in Word needs some changes to suit your needs. Here’s some suggestions for things to alter or check to make sure they suit your, er, style. Can’t see a Body Text style? See Make Body Text style appear in Microsoft Word Body Text style can be
Microsoft Word has a simple and quick way to reveal the Unicode value or character number for any letter, symbol or emoji using the Alt + X shortcut. As you may know, each character shown on a computer is really a number. There’s an accepted list of symbols called Unicode
Here’s your four choices for making text fit within an Excel cell. About wrapping text, adding line breaks and merging cells in Excel. There are plenty of options to fit text in Excel but not all of them are obvious. At first, when you type text in a cell it
A small but very welcome change to the File menu in Office 365 for Windows to handle the overflow at the bottom of the window. It’s one of those changes that Microsoft doesn’t promote or even mention. Maybe because it’s quite small or perhaps because it fixes an embarrassing design
Did you know that the U.S has two feet? Meaning two different measurements for the term ‘foot’? That got us wondering how Excel’s Convert() handled the standard ‘foot’ and the US Survey ‘foot’. Excel Convert() supports the International Standard Foot and, indirectly, the US Survey Foot. America Has Two Feet.
Microsoft Word has a booklet printing option but there’s a simple alternative if it’s not working or you’d like options not available in Word. Here’s how to booklet print in Word and also a simpler alternative. Word’s Booklet Printing is done in the document (Layout | Paragraph | Page Setup
Add a keyboard shortcut for any Microsoft Word style including Headings and Normal style. A shortcut is faster than clicking on the ribbon anytime you want to apply a style. For commonly used styles it’s easier and faster to use a keyboard shortcut. Microsoft even supplies a few with Word,
Here’s how to apply the same formatting, borders and picture styles to more than one picture or graphic in Word, PowerPoint or Excel. There’s an unexpected and easy way to do it. Picture Format tools don’t have custom styles (Microsoft please note) only the in-built pre-sets. If you want to
PowerPoint has supported video within slides for many versions. Like many things in Office, the promises took many years to become a practical and easy reality. Here’s how to try again … with PowerPoint 2013 or 2016 for Windows. Easy Video Insert On a blank slide you’ll see the insert
Put the Reference Mark ※ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Reference Mark ※ or reference symbol is used in Asian writing (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) like the Asterix * in western languages. It marks some additional notes to text. It’s called
Why you must use the Microsoft Office Document Inspector … and why you can’t completely trust it. The Office Document Inspector is an important tool for anyone who shares or sends out Office documents. It helps prevent legal troubles and personal embarrassment. Inspect Document is only in Office for Windows
People working on a shared Word document can now assign tasks ‘To Do’ within the document, then mark a task as resolved or even reassign it. Here’s how Assign Tasks works and who gets it. Assigning Tasks is an extension of the existing Comments feature for shared documents. When you
A new Excel tool might help with very large, sluggish workbooks but don’t expect a lot despite the promising name “Check Performance”. It took us just minutes to find some undocumented strangeness in this cautious addition to Excel. “Check Performance” looks for unnecessary formatting, metadata and styles that might be
Quickly type the Euro € currency sign into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Euro € symbol is easy on some keyboards but for other keyboards there’s no specific key for Euro. You can [copy content=”€” text=”click here to copy Euro
Two new Windows PowerToys are especially useful for many Microsoft Office users. One is a better way to type accented characters, the other grabs text from images. Quick Accent, Text Extractor and, to a lesser extent, Screen Ruler are all additions to the PowerToys collection that can be useful for
Outlook 365 for Windows now has the Microsoft To Do service, at least that’s what Microsoft is boasting. It’s not a proper integration into Outlook and there are dangerous limitations. To Do is a relatively new Microsoft cloud service. It’s quite different and more powerful than the Tasks part of
Tasks in Outlook have been given a major update with the development of Microsoft To Do. To Do is way better than the old Tasks with more options, its own app and web page options. It’s available for everyone but works best with a Microsoft hosted mailbox (Outlook.com, Microsoft 365
