Apple is releasing a new version of MacOS, for all Mac computers, called ‘Big Sur’ or version 11. What does that mean for Microsoft Office compatibility and stability? Big Sur is the latest MacOS operating system (version 11) for Mac computers. It’s rolled out from 12 November but you can
Apple’s new Macbook’s use a totally new type of chip, the M1 or Apple Silicon. What does that mean for Microsoft Office and other programs? We’ll explain what Apple Silicon Macs are and why they are better. Microsoft Office compatibility with the new machines (it’s messy at the moment) and
Designer, a quick formatting feature in PowerPoint is now available in Microsoft Word. Here’s how to find and use the new feature. Word’s Designer works a little differently to the PowerPoint Designer but the basics are the same. A side-pane offers some templates that will reformat the entire document. Some
The new Apple iOS 14.2 adds 117 new emoji to use but be careful now you use them because not even all iPhone and iPad can handle them, let alone non-Apple devices. We explain how they work, how the emoji appear on receiving devices and include a full list of
Plus + , disposable or instant alias email addresses are now available for Microsoft 365 hosted mailboxes and Outlook.com accounts. Here’s how to get this useful email trick for your mailbox. Outlook.com All Outlook.com accounts have plus addresses automatically. It was introduced to Hotmail (‘as was’) back in 2013. It’s
Outlook for Windows/Mac has features that work well with email plus or disposable addresses. Plus addresses let you make sub-addresses that come to the same mailbox see What are email Plus addresses and how to use them for details. Outlook Rules with plus addresses Most Outlook Rules are based on
Those ‘award’ logos with the laurel or fern on each side can be made in Word or PowerPoint. The ‘awards’ can be serious or joking. Here’s the thing we mean, you’ll often see them on theatre or movie posters. Format The standard wording for these logos is: Award organization (Academy
We’ve tried out famous and classic lines on Microsoft suggested reply feature. Inspired by The New Yorker’s tests with Gmail. In Google Smart Reply, Literary Critic, Bruce Handy checks out the Smart Reply suggestions from Gmail to lines like this from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. Microsoft 365 hosted Exchange Server has
Microsoft first quarter 2021 earnings received a big boost from the move to remote working and the COVID-19 crisis. Though the company was careful not to credit the global pandemic for their success. The headline results for the quarter to 30 September 2020, compared to the same period in 2019:
Illustrations are a new graphics option coming to Microsoft 365 that supplements the existing Icons with a wider range of visual aids for documents, emails, worksheets and slides. They’ve appeared, without any mention, in preview versions of Microsoft 365 for Windows (version 13415.20002) and Microsoft 365 for Mac (v16.43 20102102)
Put the Sound Recording Copyright ℗ or Circled P character into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Sound Recording Copyright ℗ symbol (aka Circled P ) is used to mark musical copyright. The ‘P’ stands for ‘Phonogram’ or the modern ‘Phonorecord’
Adding a continent map is easy in Word, Excel or Powerpoint, in fact there’s a few ways to get them for the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and Antarctica. It depends on the quality you need and version of Office. Continental Icons Among the many icons are silhouettes of all
Microsoft is expanding their support for SVG graphics by allowing these ‘Icons’ to be copied from Office documents into other third-party apps. Users can take an Office Icon or SVG and easily copy it to another app to use or change beyond Office’s in-built features. There’s no special menu item
Writing into cells is now possible in Excel for Windows using the Action Pen in a new way. Sadly, as we’ll see, the implementation is a bit clumsy and lacks documentation. Action Pen was introduced earlier this year as a way to edit documents with digital ink gestures. Action Pen
Hackers now imitate Microsoft account logins more than any other, so criminals can steal personal and corporate information. So Microsoft leads again, but you won’t see this in their promotions. A brand phishing attack is a fake site that appears to be the real company, often using a similar URL
Joining a Zoom or Teams call isn’t as simple as turning on your computer and looking at the camera. Preparation is necessary to make sure you look and sound good and are polite to the other callers. Simple keyboard shortcuts to mute/unmute or ‘Push to Talk’. And we have sage
Microsoft is trying a new way to push Office or Microsoft 365 to new customers by dropping links into the Windows Start Menu. We’ve seen this on the Start Menu of Windows 10 preview releases. It’s a group of icons for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and Skype. Most of
Microsoft appears to be pre-installing the Office web apps into their Edge browser. The web based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outook are way beyond mere web pages. They are programs in their own right known as Progressive Web Apps or PWA. As reported by WindowsLatest, these Office PWA’s
Office 365 hosting is still a big target for hackers and criminals to infiltrate organizations around the world. There are two new terms to know: Lateral Movement and Breakout Time. As Microsoft pushes their cloud services, it’s become a bigger and more valuable target for anyone wanting private data to
There are 87 different security breaches fixed in this months rollout of Microsoft bug fixes, including an important one for Windows. Also a Critical fix for Outlook and patches for Word, Excel. We’ll start with a very critical Windows bug that’s important to patch right away. Vital Windows 10 bug
Are your Excel worksheets ready for negative interest rates? The world is seeing historically low interest rates. So low that they can drop to zero or even lower rates. Not only can Excel worksheets break with unexpected negative percentages but modelling can accidently move into negative territory. Interest rates might
Excel’s Sparklines have a good range of options for highlighting high and low values, text or calculated overlays, changing axis and handling blank or zero values. Sparklines are in Excel for Windows and Mac. Excel Mobile (iPhone, iPad, Android) shows existing Sparklines made elsewhere but they can’t be changed, only
There’s been another breakdown in Microsoft’s crucial online services – the third in only ten days. The trouble started on Thursday 7th October about 2:45pm US East Coast time (18:45 UTC). Users could not login to Microsoft cloud services. According to Microsoft, the outage affected “Microsoft Teams, Outlook, SharePoint Online,
