The Microsoft Office Championships are done for 2017 with talented young people from all over the planet among the winners. We have the full list of winners. The competition is for students 13-22 years with categories for Word, Excel and PowerPoint in 2013 or 2016 versions. Outlook, Access, Visio and Publisher don’t get a spot. […]
The British Library has a collection of over a million copyright free images for use in Word documents and PowerPoint presentations. They are on Flickr and a good place to start is the albums. A few that caught our eye are: Women of the World Illustrated Letters and Typography – perhaps for unique Drop Caps? […]
Calibre, the invaluable ebook and e-reader management software, has improved. It now has Microsoft Word document conversion to and from MOBI, EPUB and other ebook formats. Until recently, Calibre could convert from Word .docx files to make .mobi (Kindle) or .epub (other readers) or many other formats. With version 3, Calibre can now convert ebook […]
Jacob Brogan launches a deserved broadside on Microsoft Word’s grammar checker in Slate. ” Microsoft’s grammar and style tools aren’t helping writers understand their work, just arbitrarily imposing anemic pedantry on them. “ He gives practical examples of mistakes in the latest ‘Editor’ English grammar checker. Replacing ‘the majority of’ with ‘most’ is OK but […]
The free office suite, LibreOffice, has released with better Microsoft Office compatibility and a sly dig at their bigger rival. LibreOffice 5.4 has its own Open Document Format (.odt etc.) which is similar to Microsoft’s .docx format. LibreOffice can work with both formats. v5.4 has improvements in the Microsoft Office document compatibility. They’ve also streamlined […]
Here’s how to delete whole pages or rearrange the page order from a PDF document without paying for PDF editing software. A lot of people never need PDF editing software. Making PDF’s is easy using Microsoft Office or the ‘Print to PDF’ feature in Windows. Simple editing, like deleting pages or rearranging the order of […]
“Word Processing is Dead” makes for a snappy op-ed headline but it doesn’t tell the whole story. The Australian Financial Review has tales of Word woe from the legal community. Badly formatted contracts, especially inconsistent numbering, is the bane of many organizations. “…work was done by dedicated operators with expert training. But this is 2017, […]
The improved Accessibility Check in Word 2016 for Windows (Office 365) can be some help in the problem of inconsistent levels or numbering. Messed up numbering is an issue in contracts and other legal documents. Go to File | Info | Check for issues | Check for Accessibility and scroll down to the tips section. […]
Microsoft Office can read aloud, talk or speak the text of documents to you. It’s possible in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote. Computer speaking text is mainly suggested for various disabled users under the ‘Accessibility’ name. But ‘Speak’ is also useful if you’re just tired of reading the screen or are proof-reading from another […]
The Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for Windows 10 computers are hiding from the Microsoft Store. Here’s how to get them. Word, Excel and PowerPoint have ‘mobile’ versions that run on Windows 10 devices for full PC’s, tablets and Windows phones. Here are the links you need, since Microsoft has hidden them. Word Excel PowerPoint […]
The Irish are talking about ‘pink text’ used in a court ordered apology. Text that’s so faint it’s almost impossible to read. Here’s how to do it and post on a web site. TheLiberal.ie site was ordered to apologize for copyright breaches and did it by posting an image of the required text in light […]
A political corruption row is brewing in Pakistan with questions about Word and the Calibri font. We dug into the Office Watch archives for more info than simply checking Wikipedia. A report into possible corruption by the Prime Ministers daughter, suggests that some documents were faked. The documents are dated in 2006 but use the […]
Microsoft proudly added accessibility features to Office 2016 for Windows, in particular ‘Alt Text’. Pity it’s not been refined and fixed once the hype died down. Earlier this year, Microsoft added an ‘Alt Text’ feature to Office which tries to automatically suggest alternative text for visually impaired readers. Right click on an image and choose […]
Images inserted into your Word documents are being automatically uploaded to Microsoft for the accessibility ‘Alt Text’ feature. Even if the image and document are saved on your computer, not cloud storage. It’s a hidden ‘feature’ in Office 2016 for Windows desktop (Office 365 subscribers). Earlier this year, Microsoft added an ‘Alt Text’ feature to […]
No cloud service is perfect, what should you do to prepare for a temporary or permanent breakdown of your OneDrive or Office 365 cloud storage? Microsoft pushes use of OneDrive to store all your documents and images. That suits Microsoft’s strategy but isn’t necessarily a good thing for customers. Office 365 occasionally goes ‘off the […]
Yes, you can make your own ‘Time” magazine cover, to put up in your house, office, den, golf clubs or whatever. Our Eye-Catching Signs with Word includes over 50 Word documents ready to use as signage. Two of them are magazine covers complete with title, border, sub-titles even a ‘date’. You can change the photo, […]
We won’t bore you with yet another article about today’s Petya ransomware attack We do have some notes and reassurance that arise. Security Patches Microsoft have this one covered. Back in April 2017 they released relevant patches for Windows Vista and Windows 7, 8.1 and Windows 10 plus server editions Also important patches for Office […]
The Oxford English Dictionary has new last entry on the final page of the ‘Z’ chapter. As Office nerds, we immediately went to see how Microsoft Office handles this obscure word and its predecessor. Turns out Office handles the ‘last word’ very well. The new last entry is Zyzzyva (“zih-zih-vah”) which replaced the previous finalist. […]
The Royal Shakespeare Company has made its image archive available online, adding another resource for PowerPoint and Word users. The pictures go back 80 years of the company’s history and features images from (now) famous names like Sir Patrick Stewart, Dame Judy Dench and many more. Beyond the stage You could certainly use the images […]
Each year Office-Watch.com has a little fun seeing how Microsoft Word’s dictionary compares to the winners of the Scripps (US) National Spelling Bee. Word did better in 2017 than past years. Still, no chance of Word reaching the finals in 2013, 2014, 2015 , 2016 and now 2017 despite being much older than any of […]
Microsoft has released an interesting new tool for Office 2013/2016 which promises to be a major improvement on current ‘speech to text’ options. Most media have just reported Microsoft’s hype, we’ve actually tested Dictate and here’s what we’ve found. What makes Dictate different is the use of Cortana voice recognition technology. It uses the same […]
It’s expected that today (15 June 2017), Microsoft will release ‘Office in the Windows Store’ as a new way to buy Office. Understand the differences between it and ‘Office 2016 for Windows’ or the Windows 10 / Modern apps for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The new release is not just a different way to […]
Most color printers have a secret tracking or forensic code added to every page that lets governments and others know when and where the page was printed. It’s just one result of last week’s NSA leak and later arrest. One piece of evidence against Reality Winner was the secret code on the pages she allegedly […]
Just a few months after a privacy warning about Docs.com, the Microsoft document sharing site is to close. 15 December 2017 The closure is happening on 15 December 2017, so there’s plenty of time to make the move. All files and documents in your docs.com account will be deleted on that date. Microsoft has created […]
This is a really screwy error message. You try to start an Office desktop program and are stopped with the message ‘This app can’t run on your PC’. Here’s the fix. To make it even stranger, some Office programs will work while others say they can’t run? We’ve seen the very latest version of Outlook […]
According to a classified NSA report, a Russian hack used Word documents as part of their attempts to interfere in the 2016 US Presidential election. The report also shows that some often-repeated security advice is worthless in the 21st Century. The report details how Russian based hackers targeted employees of firms who maintained electoral rolls […]
Windows will automatically index and let you search Office documents on your computer or network – how can you stop that happening? Maybe the document is personal or so private you don’t want anyone to find it with a Windows Search. Or discover that the document even exists! Password Protection The most direct way to […]
The US Supreme Court (aka The Supreme’s) has sided with consumers in a case about refilling printing toner or ink cartridges. Alas, printer makers still have other ways to grab extra money from you. Lexmark sued Impression Products who have been refilling ink/toner cartridges. The case alleged that Lexmark’s patents on cartridge technology were being […]
Printer makers are happy to sell a cheap printer because they make big profits on ink, toner and other consumables. Here’s how to save money. Buy in advance Stores and printer makers rely on people waiting until they’ve run out of ink/toner before rushing to get more. You pay a high premium for that rushed […]
Microsoft is a slow learner. After seven years they’ve finally fixed an annoying emoji bug in Outlook and they’ve done it in a typically sideways fashion. Current versions of Office display an incompatible smiley emoji that often appears as the letter J – instead of 😊 If you’ve ever seen a message with a J […]
Everyone is talking about ransomware now that the WannaCrypt has spread like crazy across the world. These nasty viruses target your documents and precious files including Microsoft Office files and Windows backups. This is a little embarrassing for us because Office-Watch.com has just released a new book that’s suddenly become very topical. Everyday BACKUPS – […]
Microsoft has moved quickly to block a security hole in their own anti-virus software, Windows Defender. We’re used to seeing email or instant messaging used to infect a computer when opening a document in Word or Excel, maybe an email in Outlook. But this is quite different and very worrying. The bug is in Microsoft’s […]
Coming soon is a new version of Windows, the Windows 10S. What does it mean for Microsoft Office users? The 10S is a stripped down and limited version of Windows 10. Some advanced features aren’t available while others are set to Microsoft’s preferences automatically. To buy 10S is cheaper than the Home or Pro editions, […]
Adding fonts into Microsoft Office is easy but the standard advice doesn’t always work. We’ll show you how to install a font and avoid the trap. Font installation has nothing to do with Word, Excel or PowerPoint. It’s all done in Windows. Firstly, download the new fonts. There are many fonts, free and paid around […]
Last week, Microsoft released the Dubai font to their Office 365 customers only. Now the city-state of Dubai has released it to everyone. Dubai is a new font which has both western and Arabic characters in the one package. It was created by the Dubai government with assistance from Microsoft. You have to hand it […]
At last the cries of eager Signal supporters have been heard – the latest releases allow secure transfer of Office documents, PDF and more. Signal is a well-respected, very secure and private messaging system. The makers of Signal licence their open-source encryption to other messengers like Google, Facebook and WhatsApp. Even better, Signal deliberately retains […]
A few Office-Watch.com readers asked if the Dubai font is really the first ‘city’ font. ” Hello? Geneva? Belfast? Casablanca? Gloucester? ” – Steve R. Probably Microsoft/Dubai are making a distinction between a font made specifically for a city (city-state) and a font named after a city. Back in February, Microsoft described the Dubai font […]
The Dubai font inspired us to look at the currency symbol for the United Arab Emirates – the Dirham. A quick guide for those of us who don’t know any Arabic! There’s no direct symbol for the Dirham – unlike the dollar, Euro or Yen/Yuan. The usual prefix is DH or Dhs , just plain […]
Hyped as the first city to get its own font, Dubai and Microsoft have released the Dubai font. Office-Watch.com looks beyond the press releases for the details on the new font and Dubai font alternatives. Dubai is a sans-serif OpenType font available for Windows and Mac. It’s not a full-range Unicode font but enough for […]
If you can’t get the new Dubai font, there are many alternative fonts. The closest match we could find was FF Fago by Ole Schäfer. Among the fonts supplied with Windows/Office, the most similar is Lucida Sans. It’s on the drop-down list of fonts in Windows and Mac. Here’s Lucida Sans on the Office for […]
