The new iPad has a great price tag and good features but a hidden price trap for Microsoft Office users. It has a 10.2” screen with support for important accessories like an external keyboard and Apple Pencil. Source: Apple. The trap is in the screen size, at 10.2” it’s 0.1 inches more than Microsoft allows […]
Microsoft is pushing out a new Office app for iPhone and Android devices however most Office users won’t need to bother with it. Paid Office 365 subscribers already have better choices as part of their annual plan. The new app is called ‘Microsoft Office Mobile’ and it’s a single app with the basic features of […]
Here’s how to add a taste of the logo or text from ‘Friends’ to a Word document, PowerPoint slide or other document. All you need is available online plus a little Office trickery. Note for old-timers (like Peter, our Editor-in-Chief). ‘Friends’ was a televisual entertainment shown on broadcast networks in full color. The plots revolved […]
Outlook on the web is now blocking another 38 email attachments because they can be carriers of viruses. But Microsoft doesn’t block the most commonly used files for infecting computers. Far and away the most common infected email attachment is old-style Word documents, with .doc extensions. Excel .xls worksheets and PowerPoint .ppt presentations are similarly […]
NewsBiscuit.com is reporting that Microsoft will release a new Word template for Death Threats. ‘Grammar Nazis are welcoming the news that death threats issued by actual Nazis will soon be correctly spelt and with fewer redundant words after Microsoft announced a new Death Threat template to the latest version of Microsoft Word. A spokesman explained; […]
A recent forced disclosure by the US government demonstrates the use of NSL’s which access your personal data from Microsoft OneDrive and Outlook without a warrant or regular oversight, let alone notice to you. Microsoft, Google, Facebook and many other tech companies (including gaming services) have received National Security Letters which demand information about a […]
Office for Windows is now getting an extra on the Home pane – Recommended Documents which tries to suggest documents you’re involved with. Source: Microsoft Recent Documents has been in Office for a long time. That’s a longer list of recently opened documents. It’s quite different from the new ‘Recommended Documents’. Who gets Recommended Documents? […]
The Upload Center, that annoying little extra in modern Office is being closed down. It’s being replaced with ‘Files Needing Attention’ alerts within Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher and Visio. The Upload Center controls documents being uploaded from Office to online storage like OneDrive and SharePoint. If you haven’t noticed Upload Center, it appears as a […]
As we suspected, there are more holes in the Office Document Inspector. Our clever readers came up with some possibilities for revealing secrets in documents, worksheets and presentations. Document Inspector is good but could be better. As you’ll see, there really should be a warning about objects with multiple layers. The biggest problem with Document […]
If you want to add a bit of zing to your document, Word has a fun little feature that allows you to add color gradients to your text or background of a text box. You can even use it to add a rainbow effect, which is a bit gaudy but demonstrates the possibilities of more […]
Office’s Inspect Document is supposed to remove or scrub information being accidentally included in Word, Excel or PowerPoint files. It’s not perfect and misses out on some critical hidden information that can giveaway secrets. Details in images, layers and even highlighting. Document Inspector is at File | Info in Office for Windows. The feature was […]
Surface pens will now turn on the Draw tab in Word, Excel and PowerPoint automatically. When you pick up a Microsoft Surface Pen, the Draw tab in Office 365 will automatically appear to choose color, thickness of the digital ink. There are a few requirements, but they are pretty obvious: The Surface Pen has to […]
Word, Excel and PowerPoint have options to stop people from changing a document, making them ‘read only’ in tech speak. These options protect your documents from unauthorized editing or even reading them at all. There are different levels of protection, they are all under File | Info | Protect Document. While they are mostly talked […]
Tucked away in Microsoft Office is a little used tag ‘Content Status’ or just ‘Status’ that could help manage and find Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents in organizations. Unfortunately, Content Status is only used once in Office features. It’s supported in Windows Explorer if you know where to look. On the Mac it’s all but […]
PowerPoint has many choices for printed/PDF handouts to go with a presentation. Here’s a guide to the options spread in different places on the PowerPoint ribbon and menus. Quick PowerPoint Handouts Under File | Print is the basic handouts option to print slides and lines for people to handwrite notes. However those options do NOT […]
The ultimate in PowerPoint Handouts aren’t made in PowerPoint at all. Link a presentation to handouts in Microsoft Word, where you will then have all the Word formatting options available to you. You’re forgiven for not knowing this option existed, because it’s not immediately obvious and you need to go several steps down in menus […]
A funny story from satirical ‘The Chaser’ shows what could happen when corporate PowerPoint presentations are taken too far. LinkedIn executive presents moving PowerPoint eulogy at mother’s funeral “Before a packed congregation of relatives and friends, the senior executive paid tribute to his mother through a series of bullet points, graphic charts and bold-font mission […]
If you don’t like the large Office Backstage pane, the older and more powerful Open and Save dialog boxes are still available via shortcuts. Microsoft has spent a lot of time and effort changing the Word, Excel and PowerPoint File panes to add more features and unsubtle hints to use OneDrive to save all documents. […]
Here’s a list of the known Office install/update error codes with possible fixes. All thanks to a diligent and long-suffering Office Watch reader. Ron S has compiled these lists from web sites and forums based on experiences of other people. Doesn’t Microsoft have all this? Yes, they probably do but not for public consumption. Microsoft […]
Teams is creeping into Outlook ribbons as Microsoft tries to promote its latest collaboration platform. Here’s how to get rid of it or any other Office buttons you don’t want. Some Office users have noticed Teams icons prominently appearing on their ribbons, like this one on the Outlook Calendar ribbon. Microsoft justifies this as ‘helping’ […]
