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 […]
Changing the case upper/lower for text through all of a Word document is easy because the default settings don’t need changing. We’ve already talked about the manual Change Case options in Word, now we’ll move onto bulk changes. Sometimes the spelling of a product or brand has peculiar case choices like iPad, eBay or reCAPTCHA. […]
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 […]
One of the first major Word viruses, the Melissa virus, is 20 years old. It’s amazing to see how much and how little has changed over two decades. Office viruses today follow much the same pattern as they did back in the 20th Century. Melissa was a Word macro virus which infected computers then spread […]
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 […]
What can you do when Outlook won’t connect to a new mailbox no matter what you try? Long time Office Watch reader, Phil, found himself with an especially stubborn Outlook which would not connect to his new mailbox. He’s changed Office 365 mail servers so had to reconnect Outlook to the new mailboxes for him […]
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 […]
Word for Windows has three options for saving a document to a web page, Web Page, Single Web Page or Web Page, Filtered. Here’s a look at all three and how to choose the best option for you. What you choose depends on how much similarity you need between the Word document and the web […]
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 […]
Type or enter the ° Degree symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Windows programs generally. Degree ° is a common symbol and should be available in most fonts. If not, try another font or one of the fonts with a very wide range of characters like Arial Unicode MS or Ludica Sans Unicode. Typing […]
If the Translation options in Microsoft Office don’t do it for you, try the Google Translate full document translation option instead. For a long time, Google has a word and text translation between languages. The app is a godsend to travelers around the world, and the locals dealing with them! Entire Office documents can also […]
There’s a simple Microsoft Word trick that lets you shrink the vertical space between lines. Reducing below single line spacing. To set less than 1 line space go to Paragraph | Line Spacing and choose ‘Multiple’ – yes ‘Multiple’. Sounds screwy but it works. Set the Multiple line spacing value to less than one eg 0.7 […]
Pantone has announced its Color of the Year for 2019 but before you run off to grab color swatches, here’s how to get it in Microsoft Office – Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc. The color of 2019 is <drum roll> ….. Living Coral … As usual what’s more amazing than the color is the description from […]
Microsoft Word can print the selected parts of a document, not just the whole document, Select the part of the document you want to print. Word won’t let you print separated selections (made using the Ctrl key). Go to File | Print (or Ctrl + P) and from the Settings list choose Print Selection. The […]
A judgement from the US Court of Appeals turned on the Word Count feature in Microsoft Word and how it differs from the rules for court submissions. Most courts have rules about the length of submission which, in this case, were accidently exceeded. The plaintiff is representing himself (‘pro se’) so the judge was more […]
We already talked about the Microsoft Word ‘Shrink One Page‘ feature and its limitations. Here’s suggestions for how to move a few orphaned lines from the top of a page in more subtle and effective ways. Obviously, every document is different so the tricks you use depend on the situation. Pick and try from this […]
A new report from Sophos shows how hacking via Office documents has changed of lot in 2018 with new attacks coming much faster than in the past. Microsoft’s assurances that a security bug (sorry ‘exploit’) hasn’t been used ‘in the wild’ doesn’t mean a lot. Office document hacks made in bulk The people who find […]
Here’s how to add a keyboard shortcut for any Microsoft Word style including Headings and Normal style. A shortcut is faster than clicking on the ribbon anytime you want to apply a style. For commonly used styles it’s easier and faster to use a keyboard shortcut. Microsoft even supplies a few with Word, but not […]
There’s a little trap in Excel when figuring out the number of days between two dates. Excel has one way, but the real world has two others. It’s easy to forget the differences, in fact we forgot it ourselves in the Schenghen Visa Calculation. This article is part explanation, part warning and part mea-culpa. How […]
How to type the degree symbol (Fahrenheit, Celsius, Kelvin, latitude, longitude) into Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint. Degree Symbol codes Decimal: 176 Hex: 00B0 Web: ° ° ° Word The degree symbol ° has an inbuilt shortcut in Word. Ctrl + @ or Ctrl + Shift + 2 followed by a space will enter a […]
Back in 2002 I wrote an Access Archon article dealing with reference issues, among them the problem of certain references being upgraded when a database is opened in a higher version of Access, but not downgraded when it is again opened in a lower version. You might think that over the last 16 years Microsoft […]
While North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, was busy in Singapore, his government hackers were busy with new malware called TypeFrame and delivered by, you guessed it, a Microsoft Word document. Typeframe has eleven different elements bundled with a Word document. As usual, the hackers send the document and try to trick people into running […]
Your deadline is in four hours, you’ve got pages to write and BAM! the ‘M’ key breaks on your keyboard …. What do you do? That happened to Colin Chambers, a University of Buffalo student when a drink spilled on his keyboard and as he put it: “The letter between “L” and “N” in the […]
Empty or unwanted pages just after a Word table are especially annoying. Trying to select anything after the table can be difficult unless you know the tricks. Here’s the common problem in Word. A table goes to the end of a document or section but another empty page is added. Clicking Home | Paragraph | […]
Here’s how to convert an older .doc .xls or .ppt into a safer and smaller .docx .xlsx .pptx even if you don’t have Microsoft Office. Any smart computer user is wary of documents received in the old .doc .xls .ppt formats because they are regularly used to transmit viruses. The new document formats are much […]
A recent security patch for Microsoft Office was done an unusual way, suggesting that there’s something a bit strange happening in the development team. Last week we told you about a 17 year old bug in the Equation Editor part of Office. Microsoft fixed the security hole and a few others besides. The way they […]
The long-standing viewer software for Word, Excel or PowerPoint are going to that Bit Black Hole to which all software must eventually go. The Word Viewer, Excel Viewer and PowerPoint Viewer are being ‘retired’ in Microsoft parlance. That only means they won’t be available for download from Microsoft. Nor will the company release any more […]
There’s been a whopping big security hole in Microsoft Office for the last 17 years, via the old Equation Editor and a less than vigilant Microsoft. We have details of the problem, how to fix it and why there’s more to come …. In the November 2017 patches there are some that are innocently labelled […]
The much unloved Office Clippy will never leave us, thanks to a Javascript library that makes the annoying little critter possible on any web page. We wondered how the WordArt online site got the animated Clippy effect on the web page. Turned out that it wasn’t hard. There’s a free Javascript library available that recreates […]
Does anyone miss the original WordArt from the 1990’s? Now you can get it back courtesy of some clever web work by Mike McMillan. https://makewordart.com/ recreates, with scary detail, the look of early Office including the WordArt gallery. Pull down menus, a Start button in the corner and the dreaded Clippy to help you. You […]
Can you believe it, PowerPoint is 30 years old? Originally called ‘Presenter’, in 1987 it was renamed to ‘PowerPoint’ by Robert Gaskins. Later in 1987, Microsoft bought the software out of petty cash (i.e. $14 million). 22 May 1990 was the first release of Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows, the birthday that Redmond officially recognizes. In […]
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 […]
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 […]
There are many ways to save an Outlook email or other items to a separate file. Which one you choose depends on your needs. One Outlook message or many? Compatible for many people or not? Easy to search or not? Some options work for a single message only. Others can be used to save many […]
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 […]
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 – […]
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 […]
One of the colors in the Crayola box is being dropped. Never fear, the color Dandelion can be part of your Office documents as can any other Crayola color. It’s not the same as the smell and feel of a Crayola crayon but it’s better than losing the color entirely. Dandelion is being removed from […]
If you look in folders that contain Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) you might see the occasional .tmp file. What are they, could they be useful and can they be safely deleted? The quick answers are: probably Word or Office document remnants, could be handy to recover a lost document but otherwise they can be […]
There’s a new type of infected Office document that can bypass some protections and trick people into installing a keylogger on their computer. A keylogger is software that records each keypress and send it to a hacker. They can use that info to get your login details for many sites or software. What’s new is […]
