A simple question – what characters can you put in an email address? Like many things to do with the Internet the answer isn’t as simple or direct as you might think. We’ll look at what makes a valid email address, both in theory and in practice. A simple question
Excel 365 for Windows is getting three performance boosts that you might not notice but speed up your work on less powerful computers. All these Excel 365 for Windows tweaks are designed for what Microsoft politely calls “resource-constrained devices”. That means: CPUs with two cores or less 8GB of RAM
What are the real words for really big numbers, waaay over a trillion? Does Microsoft Word’s dictionary recognize them? (Answer: most but not all and there’s even a spelling mistake in Word!). How many is a billion anyway? We’ve looked at the informal words for vague large numbers such as
A small but important change is coming to Word mobile app for iPhone, iPad or Android. You’re able to continue listening to a ‘Read Aloud’ document from the lock screen. At the moment, Word will stop reading a document to you if the lock screen is enabled (usually because there’s
Does Office 2021 or Office 2019 insist on a Microsoft account Sign-In (login) to use the software and edit documents? We’ve done some tests to check and we’ll explain the details too. It’s a good question. Microsoft 365 software does require a Microsoft account login but what about the ‘perpetual
Office apps in a browser have caught up with an important feature in Office 365 for Windows – quick account switching is now available. Almost three years ago, Microsoft added quick account switching to Office 365 for Windows. You can save logins to several Microsoft 365 accounts; work, school, home
We’ve seen many cheap Microsoft Office 365 Family, Personal and other plans sold as ‘lifetime’, ‘perpetual’ or ‘never-ending’. It’s all lies. Some deals are obviously scams, like this one for just US$3 but others have more plausible prices. They are priced just under the regular street price to seem like
The Windows Emoji Panel has its problems which are amply demonstrated by a common symbol that’s hiding in the long symbol lists – the Pi symbol 𝜋 . We’ll explain where it’s hiding and generally grumble about this part of Windows 11 and 10. The Emoji Panel is in Windows
Microsoft has changed the way they rollout new features in Microsoft Office 365 which can lead to confusion and frustration, especially among the Insiders who try out new stuff before it reaches the public. In olden days (say 2018) getting new or changed features was simply a question of having
There’s a small but important point about Microsoft Word with Footnotes and Endnotes. It’s so important we’ve made this separate little article about copying or moving. The footnote or endnote is stored in that little superscript character in the document text. Copy, move or delete that superscript character and the
If Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) is misbehaving, try the Repair option. If that’s also causing trouble, there’s a hidden command prompt option. For any ‘Click to Run’ installations of Office for Windows (mostly Microsoft 365, Office 2019) there are Repair options available to fix common problems. Among these
At long last, Excel v4 macros are being blocked from running in Excel 365 by default. A move that greatly reduces the security risk from infected attachments in Excel 365 and Excel 2021. Excel v4 macros are a very old form of programming, literally 30 years old. It allowed macros
Not only has Microsoft just added 25 more languages to the Dictation feature of Microsoft Office 365, they’ve also promoted six languages from ‘Preview’ to full dictation status. Microsoft has been unusually quiet about all the improvements in Dictation, focusing on the new languages while not even mentioning that six
Organizations which choose the Semi-annual update for their staff have been told by Microsoft that they are being forced to the monthly update schedule. Here are the details and a look at the nonsense that Microsoft is sprouting to explain the switch. Until now, organization administrators had two choices for
A little tale of lost luggage, a frustrated customer, Apple Airtags and using Powerpoint to publicly embarrass the airline and their courier partners. AviosAdventurer and partner flew from Frankfurt to London Heathrow via Dublin on Aer Lingus. The airline managed to leave all three of their bags (perhaps others?) beside
Excel Sheet View is Microsoft’s fix for a problem when sharing an Excel list or table among many people. We’ll explain how it works and what’s happening behind the scenes. A shared Excel list can be sorted or filtered in many different ways. It’s quite possible that two people can
There’s only a year of Office 2013 support left but don’t panic. Despite what you might have read in some clickbait headlines, Office 2013 is not ‘ending’. Support for Office 2013 ends on 11 April 2023 That does NOT mean Office 2013 will stop working on that date. Talk about Office
Microsoft replaced the Paperclip emoji with their dreaded Clippy in Windows 11. Here’s how to get a proper paperclip symbol instead of the Microsoft branded alternative. We’ve already explained how the Windows 11 emoji panel has a paperclip with eyes and a smile. Which might be OK, but what if
The dread Clippy, the paperclip with eyes, is still hiding in Windows and Office. The Windows 11 emoji panel and Segoe UI Emoji font have Clippy instead of a plain old paperclip that other apps use. Use the Emoji Panel in Windows 11 (Win + . ) and search for
It’s not necessary to convert MP3 audio to the better MP4 format for PowerPoint but, if you want to, there are various ways to do it. MPEG-4 audio (.mp4 .m4a ) is recommended by Microsoft for PowerPoint 2016 (Windows and Mac), PowerPoint 2013 and Powerpoint for mobile devices. MP4 audio
LucidChart is a very nice diagramming and flowchart tool which is integrated with Microsoft Office for Windows or Mac. Office has diagram tools via Insert | Shapes but they aren’t very elegant. They serve for simple uses but not a lot more. LucidChart is better than the inbuilt Office diagram
Apple has just released a new and quite different Mac laptop. It has unique hardware and a minimalist operating system. The macOS has always had a Trash Can (Recycling Bin for Windows users) but this new model puts the Trash at the heart of the machine rather than a detail
The Shapes feature in Microsoft Office looks the same in all the major Office apps but it’s not. The important connectors feature, essential for flowcharts, is obvious Word or Outlook but works automatically in Excel, Publisher and PowerPoint. Update: We’ve updated this article after some clever readers reminded us of
Microsoft has generous price discounts for non-profit organizations but that hasn’t stopped them raising the cost of Microsoft 365 plans up to 28% The new prices start in September 2022, Microsoft announced them as monthly price changes to make them appear lower than they really are. Redmond does that knowing
