Office 365 customers will be seeing a set of opening screens about how Microsoft gathers and uses customer data. Those screens are carefully worded to avoid some hard truths about modern cloud connections and cover Microsoft from legal liability. Cloud features can be great and very useful. Companies do their best to hide the problems, […]
Microsoft has something ‘new’ in Office 365 they call ‘Connected Experiences’. It’s really a new, fancy name for things we already have. Connected Experiences is the new catchphrase for the cloud services already in Office 365 software or apps. It’s the various features which require customer data sent to Microsoft’s servers. According to Microsoft: “Office […]
There’s a TV show just starting its last season, maybe you’ve heard of it <g>? Here’s how to get the Game of Thrones look in Word documents and PowerPoint slides. Plenty of people have borrowed the Game of Thrones or GoT look, including a certain US President. All these uses are contrary to various trademarks […]
The May 2019 update to Windows 10 includes a long-awaited and important addition, an updated Emoji Panel. What a pity that it totally sucks and is incredibly dumb. Emoji Panel is better than what we had before (nothing) but not by a lot. We’re talking about the Emoji Panel or ‘keyboard’ which appears in Windows […]
Google has announced that their G Suite customers will be able to edit and collaborate with Microsoft Office documents. It will be available to all G Suite users by the end of May 2019. Source: Google. Until now, a clumsy Office compatibility app for Chrome allowed Microsoft Office documents to be edited in Google Docs, […]
Slack, the popular collaboration service, has added better integration with Office 365 hosting and OneDrive. Office 365 tools were inevitable because Microsoft now has Teams, its own rival to Slack. There are two new tools, Outlook email and calendar plus nice previews of Microsoft Office documents. Office document preview Now included in Slack is better […]
It’s income tax time in the USA and that means a new round of email scams and infected Excel documents to watch out for. IBM Security Intelligence reports on a series of scam emails courtesy of the Trickbot hackers. All the emails look like legitimate messages from big companies like Paychex, a payroll provider and […]
Microsoft continues to struggle with their support for Japanese Era date format in Excel. The new Imperial Era, ‘Reiwa’ is known but the necessary changes for Excel aren’t released yet. New Japanese Imperial Era changes in Excel and Office explains how to add the new Reiwa era without waiting for Microsoft’s patch. Meantime, yet more […]
How to insert the different Ellipsis … marks into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Ellipsis … symbol is used for a gap or break in some text, usually to drop out some irrelevant text or speech. The same applies in maths e.g. 1,1,2,3 …. 377 […]
Microsoft has never been great about documenting patches and bug fixes but this month they have sunk to a new low. Maybe it’s a delayed April Fool’s prank with Microsoft ‘taking the Mickey‘ or treating Office customers with contempt? Sustained Engineering isn’t sustained Maintaining Office software is the thankless job of the Office Sustained Engineering […]
The current Google Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office will stop working near the end of June. There’s an improved update already available for some customers and an alternative for the rest. If you’re using the Google Drive plug-in, you’ll start seeing a warning about the plugins death on 26 June 2019. Source: Google There are […]
An update for Excel users on the upcoming new Imperial Era in Japan and how to type the Reiwa era name in Office documents The Japanese government has now announced the new Era name that will coincide with new Emperor. From 1 May 2019 we’ll be in the 令和or Reiwa era. This might not seem […]
Converting SVG icons into JPG is essential for older Word and Office versions that don’t have native icon/SVG support. SVG’s are great with many advantages for Office 365 and Office 2019 users. Not everyone has the latest Microsoft Office or shares documents with others who have earlier versions of Office. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) are […]
In Japan there are two amazing uses of Excel. Excel used for displaying train timetables and to make beautiful works of art. The Michelangelo of Excel Tatsuo Horiuchi has become the Michelangelo of Excel. On retirement he wanted to turn to art but didn’t want the expense of paint, brushes etc. He turned to his […]
Laundry care symbols you see on clothes tags can be typed or inserted into Word, Excel or PowerPoint in various different ways. Laundry care symbols can be for laundry area signs or for fun like this t-shirt. T-shirt seen in a Zurich clothing store Or alternative symbols in a PowerPoint slide. All five symbols were […]
Which font to use if emulating a true laundry care or clothing text label in Word, PowerPoint or other Office program? We’ve already talked about how to put standard laundry care symbols in Word, Excel or PowerPoint but what about the text that usually goes with the icons? In our research we couldn’t find any […]
Thanks to everyone who tried out Microsoft Forms by filling out our example survey. Here are the results. Our form was mainly an example of what’s possible in Microsoft Forms as part of Microsoft Forms – a quick look and sample We took the opportunity to get a better idea of what Office software our […]
Microsoft Forms can export survey/quiz results to an Excel workbook, here’s how to do that easy and efficiently. The current method of getting Microsoft Forms results into Excel isn’t very elegant. Surprisingly, it doesn’t make use of Excel’s excellent data import and update features. At the moment, you have to download an Excel worksheet with […]
Continuing our look at Excel tab/worksheet listing here’s a fully automated alternative with more control and filtering. See Make Excel tabs list in a worksheet Automatic worksheet/tabs list in Excel Fit more tabs across an Excel workbook There are many VBA code samples on the Internet, we’ve taken one we like and added some extras based […]
Does Excel have enough significant digits for Pi in the inbuilt Pi() function? Modern computing can calculate Pi to 3.14 trillion digits which is a good trick but even extreme situations only needs Pi to 15 significant digits. What’s extreme? How about interplanetary travel? JPL/NASA calculate the paths of probes to Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and […]
Excel for Android has a new trick, converting photos of tables or other documents into worksheets. As usual, some conditions and limitations apply to Insert Data from Picture that are overlooked in the usual hype. The idea is simple, take a photo of a table or grid in a document then Excel will convert it […]
Updated Microsoft Office 365 icons have started appearing in the preview ‘fast track’ Office 365 for Windows and we could not be more excited. No … not really. When it comes to changed Office icons; if we were more apathetic, we’d be in a coma. Office 365 icons for Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint on […]
An automatically updated list of all worksheets or tabs in Excel but there are ‘gotchas’ which aren’t often mentioned. We’ve already talked about fitting more tabs on the screen or making a manual list of tabs/worksheets. Now we’ll take the next step and make an automatic list of worksheets that will update as the workbook […]
Make your own clickable list of workbook tabs in an Excel worksheet to workaround the small number of tabs that can fit in a single line. See Fit more tabs across an Excel workbook for some suggestions to squeezing more across the single line available. Those suggestions work to make a bit more space available […]
Tabs in an Excel workbook can easily be hidden away on that single line. Here’s some tricks to fit more visible workbooks or workarounds when the tab list is way too long. Here’s the common problem with too many worksheet labels and not enough width. The three-dots at either end are the clue to the […]
Microsoft Forms is the latest cloud service to join the Office 365 stable. It’s still a Preview service, not full formed, but it’s working and interesting. We decided to take a look and give you a sample Form to try. Forms is a way to make online questionnaires, quizzes or surveys then add the data […]
Wanna jump in and see a Microsoft Forms in action? We’ve made a sample Microsoft Form one for all our Office Watch readers to try. Below is the embeded version (using an <iFrame) or click here to see it on a separate page. Our simple form serves three purposes. The first two questions are serious. […]
How to insert the Registered Trade Mark ® currency symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Registered Trade Mark ® not to be confused with the Unregistered Trade Mark ™ symbol Registered Trade Mark ® codes These are the important code numbers or values you’ll […]
Type the Trademark ™ TM symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Trademark ™ TM symbol is, strictly speaking, called the Unregistered Trademark symbol. Its counterpart is the Registered Trademark ® Trademark in Word and Outlook The Trademark ™ sign has an inbuilt shortcut in […]
Color fonts are coming to Microsoft Office and Windows but progress is slow and patchy. Here’s a quick summary of color fonts and the occasional, erratic support in Outlook, Word and other Office programs. What are color fonts Since the beginning of Mac and Windows we’ve had single color fonts. Usually black but can be […]
Type the Yen ¥ currency symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Yen is used for Japanese currency and sometimes other currencies like the Chinese Renminbi / Yuan. ¥ symbol is easy on some keyboards but for most there’s no specific key for Yen. Word […]
The Microsoft Office Home Use Program (HUP) is a great way to save on Office 365 or Office 2019 for employees of many companies, organizations, governments and even some military personnel. Here’s details on the savings possible with the recent changes to the HUP. What’s changed? The Home Use Program (HUP) is changing to the […]
Here’s who can qualify for cheaper Office 365 Home or Personal under the revised Home Use Program and how to get the lower prices. Employer qualification Your employer must have a Microsoft Office Volume Licence agreement with Software Assurance Maintenance (SAM). If Office is widespread in your organization it’s likely they have a volume licence, […]
The new Home Use Program offers 30% discounts to employees of many organizations which have Volume Licence agreements with Software Assurance for Microsoft Office. Here’s what we know about how the new Home Use Program works, the tricks and traps. Office 365 plans with Home Use Program Both retail Office 365 plans are available at […]
How to insert the Pound £ currency symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. £ symbol is easy on a UK keyboard but for other keyboards there’s no specific key for Pound. Pound is used for British Pounds Sterling and also other ‘pound’ currencies like […]
How to type the Cent symbol ¢ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook plus any Windows program. Word and Outlook The Cent ¢ symbol has an inbuilt shortcut in Word and Outlook: Ctrl + /, C Hold down the Ctrl key while pressing / then type C (upper or lower case). Alternatively use the […]
The current Home Use Program with Office 2019 sold for a mere $15 is about to end. If you want the perpetual licence Office 2019 for Windows or Mac, you’d better hurry. The full impact of the changed Office Home Use Program (HUP) is becoming clear. We’ve already noted that Office 365 subscriptions are becoming […]
2019 is the 150th anniversary for the Periodic Table of Elements. There are some great Periodic Tables available in Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides. There are many Periodic Table ‘documents’ on the net but most are PDF’s or images. We’re looking for editable documents that you can adapt, recolor or redesign to suit […]
The latest Microsoft Office promotion is a rare example of an ad which shows how a product was deliberately crippled with less features. The ‘Twins Challenge’ is a series of very selective videos that are supposed to highlight differences between Office 2019 (single purchase, less profitable for Microsoft) and Office 365 (annual payment, highly profitable). […]
There are three different ways to change an Office icon or SVG graphic. The two official methods with their in-built limitations or some choices before inserting into Office. Within Office Limited SVG/Icon changes are available from the Graphics Tools | Format tab. In this article we’re using an SVG from Wikipedia which has the features […]
