There are two similar text formatting options in Excel. The well-known Merge & Center and the hidden away Center across selection. Both have their advantages, the choice is yours. Merge & Center Most Excel users know ‘Merge & Center’ because it’s atop the Merge list at Home | Alignment | Merge. It does two things: […]
A recent Windows update is causing VBA code to fail in Excel, Access and other VBA parts of Office. The culprit isn’t Office, but the version of Windows that it’s running on. After the 2019-08 Cumulative Update KB4511553 is applied, some VBA code will stop working. The patch bug is in Windows 10, 8.1 and […]
There’s a new generation growing up who see the Office ribbon differently from their parents. Check out this icon on the older Office ribbon …. To you, me and most people it means ‘Save’ because that’s obviously a floppy disk. Specifically, a 3.5” disk with either 720kb or 1.4MB up to a whopping 2.8MB (that’s […]
When the Stock and Geography data types disappear from the Data ribbon in Excel here’s how to fix and restore Linked Data Types. The Data ribbon is missing the entire ‘Data Types’ section. We’ve had several reports from Office-Watch.com readers who start Excel 365 and find that their Stock and Geography linked data worksheets won’t […]
The desperately needed feature is coming to Microsoft Office … the ability to search for Icons. Microsoft added Icons to Office 365 and even more a few months ago … 300 more icons in Office, but which ones and where? The problem has always been finding the right icons from the long list. There are […]
Office now has sensitivity options to label Word, Excel, PowerPoint docs plus emails. Not ‘touch-feely’ sensitivity like ‘loving’ or ‘compassionate’ but instead corporate, privacy labels. It’s a new feature for Office 365 corporate hosted E3 or E5 accounts and the admins have enabled Sensitivity options. Sensitivity appears on the Home tab in Word, Excel, PowerPoint […]
Excel provides some handy pre-selected styles that you can apply to your cells. Here’s a selection of styles that we use, improve from Microsoft’s bland defaults and will light up your worksheets. These are excellent for distinguishing headers from data, classifying data, or showing the function of each cell (calculations, output, notes, etc.) Cell Styles […]
The Format Cells dialog can be accessed from Home | Alignment | Orientation, or by right-clicking on selected cells and selecting Format Cells. See Excel’s text and number alignment choices Text formatting in Excel with wrapping, line breaks and merging This dialog gives you more detailed options to choose from than are available in the Orientation […]
Under Excel’s Home | Alignment ribbon you can change the indents, alignment or angle of the text in selected cells. As usual, a seemingly simple set of buttons have some hidden tricks. See Text formatting in Excel with wrapping, line breaks and merging Alignment Adjust alignment of the text, both across and up/down, use the […]
Here’s this months list of bug fixes and updates for Office 2016 and Office 2013. These apply only to the older ‘MSI’ Windows installs not the modern ‘Click to Run’ Office including all Office 365. For most people, these patches will be installed automatically via Microsoft/Windows Update. PowerPoint 2016 – KB4464577 Morph now gives you […]
It’s amazing to see how people use Excel in ways probably not dreamt of by the programs makers. We usually think of Excel as a financial tool either for businesses or personal budgeting or managing lists. Anything to do with numbers or lists has a place in Excel, like a guy in Singapore with a […]
A report commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security warns government departments NOT to use Microsoft Office Online or the apps for Apple or Android. The Privacy Company report was made public with the Ministry’s permission via two blog posts short and long. Many governments and organizations have legitimate concerns about the amount […]
Office-Watch.com reader Jeffrey J. offers this look at Emailmerge.cc an add-on that fixes some limitations in the Word/Excel/Outlook mail merge system. “ Outlook email merge function does not allow multiple To line addressees, nor allows creating any cc or bcc addressees. And you cannot customize the Subject line. Manually adding/modifying each required email is labor […]
Word allows you to insert other files with data and functionality from another document or program directly into your Word document. Microsoft calls these additions ‘Objects’ which makes it sound overly technical and difficult but it’s not. Don’t get fazed by all the nerd talk about ‘objects’, that’s programmer speak that’s leaked out into the […]
The latest release of Excel 365 for Windows is a right mess with missing Dynamic Arrays and, for a while, Stock and Geography data types disappeared too! We received some reports late Friday, US time that Excel 365 for Windows v1907 build 11901.20176 wasn’t showing Stock or Geography data types on the Data ribbon. The […]
It’s quite easy to tell if your Excel 365 has the new Dynamic Arrays. No need to setup a table and use the new feature – just three keypresses are enough. Some people are reporting that they have the right Excel 365 but with no dynamic arrays. Checking the program/app version is possible, see below. […]
Microsoft says that Dynamic Arrays have arrived but Excel 365 users beg to differ. Despite the company’s written assurances, the promised feature is nowhere to be seen. Plenty of reports that Excel 365 for Windows version 1907 (Build 11901.20176) does not have the important new feature Microsoft says it should. What’s new in Office 365 […]
After many months of testing, all Excel 365 apps now have dynamic arrays (except Excel Online) – a major and powerful expansion of Excel’s powers. The new abilities, functions and error messages might seem scary but are a great leap forward for Excel. All Excel 365 incarnations, except the browser-based Excel Online, now have dynamic […]
A new option in Office 365 for Windows is the ability to choose how hyperlinked Office files are opened. Inside Word, Excel or PowerPoint or in the default browser. The new option is at File | Options | Advanced | Link Handling Open supported hyperlinks to Office files in Office desktop apps. An Office document […]
There are plenty of options to fit text in Excel but not all of them are obvious. Here’s your choices for wrapping text, adding line breaks and merging cells. At first, when you type text in a cell it just keeps going across the next cell, if it’s empty. Sure, you can drag the edge […]
Microsoft says we should stop calling the browser-based version of their apps ‘Office Online’. It’s now just ‘Office’. ‘Word Online’ is now just ‘Word’. ‘Excel Online’ is ‘Excel’, ‘PowerPoint Online’ is merely ‘PowerPoint’. Make sense? No, we don’t understand either. Microsoft’s explanation of the name change doesn’t help. According to Microsoft they are doing this: […]
Can Office 2007 and other older versions of Office (Office 2010, Office 2013) be installed on Windows 10. What are the licensing, activation problems? How about moving documents? Eileen G asks a common question to Office Watch: “I got a new HP desktop computer, but can I install the old MS orig office, “Home and […]
Here’s the enhanced Apollo 11 mission timeline as an Excel worksheet. Office Watch newsletter readers asked for it after last weeks articles using the NASA web page as a data source. Complete Apollo 11 timeline in Excel Things to do with the Apollo 11 timeline in Excel Apollo 11 suggested viewing and reading The full […]
An Excel worksheet with Apollo 11 timeline can be used to analyze and breakdown the astronaut’s movements plus answer the big question: what time was it when Armstrong walked on the moon? See how we put the Apollo 11 timeline into Excel using Get & Transform or the older Copy/Paste method. Also Add Apollo 11 events […]
NASA has a detailed web page with the timeline of the Apollo 11 mission from before liftoff to well after splashdown It’s an example of the two ways to put a web table into an Excel worksheet. Newer Excel (365, 2019 and 2016) has PowerQuery with ‘Get and Transform’ which is much better. The older […]
One way to get a web table into Excel is simply to copy the page from your browser into an Excel workbook. This method works for all versions of Excel back more than a decade. It’s been superseded by Get and Transform with PowerQuery which does a much better job of conversion. See Complete Apollo 11 […]
Sketchy Shapes, the new line option in Office 365 now has a little video to go with it. Sketchy line option in Office for Windows and Mac Sketchy or wriggly lines in Icons and SVG graphics Source: Microsoft
It’s time for the July roundup of patches for yet more security bugs in Microsoft Office including Office 365 and Office 2016 for Windows plus Office 2013 and 2010. Plus the latest example of confusing documentation errors. Office 365 and Office 2019 A bug which lets Office Javascript doesn’t check the web page requesting details […]
Office Icons and other SVG graphics can change a lot with Sketchy lines. Sketchy lines is the new ‘hand-drawn’ line option available in Office 365 for Windows or Mac. It lets you change those somewhat stuffy and formal icons into something more casual and hand-drawn. Icons are an Office 365 feature to add scalable graphics […]
Office for Windows/Mac is getting three new outline styles for the borders of shapes and text boxes. Microsoft calls these lines ‘Sketchy’ because they have a hand-drawn line look. It’s a nice little addition to Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook. Let’s see how it works plus some details and limitations that Microsoft hasn’t mentioned. Source: […]
You’re not stuck with the Microsoft automatic settings when inserting a new shape. Change the defaults to whatever you like for faster shape formatting in Office; Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. When you Insert | Shape, something like this probably appears. Blue fill, 1pt black single line outline, no effects and Text Wrapping in front […]
You’re not stuck with the Microsoft automatic settings when inserting a new text box. Change the defaults to whatever you like for faster text box formatting in Office; Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. When you Insert | Shape | Text Box , something like this probably appears. Thin black outline, no fill and text wrapping […]
Here’s a summary of the July non-security updates for Office 2016, Office 2013 and Office 2010. These updates should be automatically installed via Microsoft Update or you can apply them manually. Install them now if there’s a listed bug you need fixing, otherwise play it safe. Leave some time for any bugs in the patches […]
The Power Query exploit in Excel is a concern but one that most Excel users are already protected from. Look past some of the shock headlines (e.g “120 million users personal information at stake due to Microsoft Excel flaw”) . Mimecast did a good job tracing this security bug in Power Query which has existed […]
A US government department has accidentally revealed a secret by overlooking the obvious in Office document security. Office helps you scrub documents of private or secret information before sending. It’s easy to overlook the obvious data leaks that ‘Inspect Document’ doesn’t cover. ‘Inspect Document’ checks for hidden information in the document that you might not […]
Office Watch reader Steve G is having a problem in Word. The F9 key is starting Cortana instead of updating fields in a Word document. He suspects a buggy patch of Windows or Office. F9 is the most common problem but redirecting to different commands. That’s probably because F9 is a most common Office function […]
OneDrive Personal Vault is a coming additional part of OneDrive storage that adds more security for important files synchronized with cloud storage. We’ll describe Personal Vault as we know it from Microsoft’s description. There are many unanswered questions about Personal Vault that will have to wait until it’s live and available for review. Personal Vault […]
Microsoft is hyping the addition of 300 more icons to Office 365 perhaps hoping to distract customers from the many problems finding and using the Insert | Icons feature in Office 365. We like the addition of SVG graphics (Icons) into Office because it opens up a much wider range of scalable graphics. Office lacked […]
Microsoft is boasting that the Office 365 ‘Icons’ collection now has 300 more graphics but no information on what they are and no help finding them. The release of more Icons just emphasizes the problems with this cloud feature. Icons is a cloud service that delivers SVG graphics to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook for […]
Drop-down boxes are useful in Excel but, like many things in Office, there’s more than one way to do it and more to know that the simple examples often given. Making a pull-down list is easy and there’re many tips showing the basics. In this article we’ll go beyond that. We’ll show that simple tip […]
