Sometimes Microsoft announces new features for the Insiders early testers that aren’t even available yet. It seems Redmond’s promotional hype gets ahead of the software reality. The new Accessibility ribbon is just the latest example. According to a blog post from 29 March, there is a new Accessibility ribbon in
Filter is another Excel 365 dynamic array formula that’s really useful and far better than similar options in earlier versions of Excel. Just like SORT() and SORTBY(), FILTER() refreshes automatically whenever the source values change. The older pull-down filter and sort choices don’t update properly. Dynamic Arrays also give you
Confused about Unicode, code-points and other techie details about inserting symbols? Here’s how it works and can work for you in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other apps. Like many things in modern computing, you mostly don’t have to know the details of how things work. But occasionally things don’t work
Details and warnings about the April 2021 security and non-security updates for Office 365, Office 2019 and Office 2016 for Windows. There are some side-effects to watch out for. All these update will, or have been, pushed to your computer already. We’ve included a tip on how to force an
Here’s all the security and general bug fixes for April, aimed at Office 2016, Office 2013 and Office 2010 for Windows. Most customers will have their Office updated automatically unless you’re one of the cautious who wait a little while to see if there’s any bugs in the bug fixes.
Microsoft has been changing the way comments work in Office 365 and now it’s the turn of Excel 365 to get the new-style conversational comments. If you’ve opened up Excel 365 recently you might have seen a notice like this: “ Comments can now be used for discussions. When you
In late 2018, Excel 365 got an important new feature, Dynamic Arrays . Here’s a simple way to use the feature to make your workbooks sort better and automatically. It also fixes a long-standing problem in Excel. We’re going to focus on a very simple and useful part of dynamic
Here’s an interesting switch, a UK company is suing Microsoft over their licencing rules for Office. Usually it’s Microsoft suing others about licences, not the other way around. ValueLicensing is claiming UK₤270 million (US$370m ) in damages from Microsoft for trying to squeeze out the second-hand licence market. Organizations that
Type the Cross of Lorraine ☨ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Cross of Lorraine ☨ symbol was originally a heraldic cross. In more recent times it was used in the global distribution systems, Sabre, Apollo, and Wordspan, as a delimiter
Microsoft has finally released a fix for what can only be described as an ‘unforced error’ or bug in Outlook that stopped some messages going out. They’ve left an unanswered mystery. The problem started after an early 2021 public update to Outlook 365 for Windows. Some messages refused to be
PowerPoint for Windows is getting a ‘Present in Teams’ button to drop your presentation into a Teams call or meeting. PowerPoint Live in Teams sounds great, but there are very specific requirements to make it work. Fire up the Teams desktop app and make sure it’s up to date. Open
Windows has some nice features for quickly showing your appointments, calendar and contacts/people lists so why don’t they show that information that’s in Outlook for Windows on the same computer? In Windows 10, clicking on the date/time in the bottom right-corner (the taskbar) you’ll see the monthly calendar and either
Microsoft 365 hosting plans are great and do most things a small business or organization needs except one thing … a public web site. Here’s how to setup a simple web site within Microsoft 365 hosted systems. For an organization or small business, Microsoft 365 hosting has most tech needs
Behind the simple Mark Index feature in Word are some useful but almost hidden options. These give you many choices for making and formatting your document index. Getting started with indexes in Word? Check out our starter, Simple Indexing in Microsoft Word. Indexes are as much art and judgment as
The fallout continues from the recent ‘Hafnium’ Exchange Server attacks. There are warnings from Microsoft for administrators who might think they are safe from infection of their systems. According to Microsoft 94% of Exchange Server systems are now protected from attacks caused by a bug in the Microsoft software. That’s
Yes, there are bunnies and other secular Easter graphics waiting for you in Microsoft 365 and Office 2019. Icons and Illustrations (both types of SVG) have some Easter or at least bunny related graphics. Stock Images also have some choices. Religious choices are missing but there are Christian or Latin
The BBC has a ‘long read’ about hidden information inside almost all photos. Office Watch has talked about this problem many times before including how the extra image data hides in Microsoft Office documents, despite the ‘Document Inspector’. It’s too easy just to think of an image as just what
A more efficient way to mark index entries in Microsoft Word is with a concordance or AutoMark file. It’s a separate document with a table of words to be found in the document coupled with their index entries. See Simple Indexing in Microsoft Word for an intro to Word’s indexing
We’re going to talk about creating indexes in Microsoft Word. ‘Real’ books often have an index at the back which Word can create for you. An index is a list of terms or topics that can be found within the document. Microsoft Word has the ‘fixings’ to make an index
A man has been jailed for two years after sabotaging a company by deleting 80% of their Microsoft 365 accounts – email, calendars, contact lists, docs, the lot. What did he do and what organizations should do to prevent a similar catastrophe. Deepanshu Kher worked for an IT consultancy and was
A new Windows component WebView2 is being quietly installed on Windows computers, mostly for Microsoft Office. Here’s what WebView2 is and that the acronym WVRT means. Most people won’t have noticed a new ‘optional’ feature added to their Windows 10 in the last week or so. Go to Settings |
Aggressive spam filters can stop you getting messages you really want to get. One Australian author found that out the hard way when she almost missed out on a genuine $150,000 prize. The email notifying her of the valuable and prestigious prize ended up in her Junk Email folder. The
Trying to find a missing message or why an email is in a particular folder? For Microsoft 365 hosted accounts the place to start is Message Trace Microsoft 365 / Exchange Server admin has a system for tracking all messages. Other Exchange Server systems have a similar feature for administrators.
How to insert the Black Right Pointing index ☛ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Black Right Pointing index ☛ symbol can be used for pointing a direction on a sign or as a different bullet symbol. There’s also a
