There’s no need to switch out of Word to do simple calculations because Word for Windows has its very own built-in calculator. Calculate in Word has some nice tricks but also problems and traps. Type a calculation, hit the button (see below) and the result appears in the status bar AND it’s loaded into the […]
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 Word has several ways to quickly insert placeholder text into documents. Sometimes you want to add some random text to a document as filler, but don’t want to think of something to write yourself. While there are websites that will generate placeholder text for you, it is also possible to do this directly within […]
Our articles about saving past events with anniversary reminders begs the question; How far back can Outlook save an event. The answer in Outlook for Windows, Mac and online is 1 April 1601. Trying to enter a date before 1st April 1601 brings up an error: “You must specify a valid date and/or time”. That […]
Here’s a practical example of how to share an appointment or event with reminders using the iCalendar .ics standard. Some Apollo 11 events ready to download and add to your calendar (in Outlook or other software). Outlook supports .ics files and so does most other calendar programs. They are small text files which have all […]
There are many ways to share an entire calendar or individual events in Outlook software. Sharing can be ‘live’ and connected. Any changes or updates to the event or calendar are automatically sent to everyone sharing. Or it can be a ‘one-off’ item. A special attachment which is emailed or a little .ics file. Receivers […]
Back in the 16th Century, italic fonts were invented and that trick can still be used today in Microsoft Word. Italics let you fit more text into the same space. An innovative Venetian publisher, Manutius, needed to make small and affordable books. Paper was expensive so anything that put more text on the page was […]
How can you buy an older version of Microsoft Office to fit in with your other computers? Fran, a loyal Office-Watch.com reader has that problem getting Office 2013. “ I have Office 2013 on two computers now. Is there a way to get another copy for the new Microsoft Surface I just bought for less than the price […]
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 […]
The inverted or Spanish question mark ¿ is available in Microsoft Word, regardless of language setting. There’s even an in-built shortcut. ¿ is most commonly used in Spanish for the start of an question sentence. This guide is mostly for people without a Spanish keyboard or who only occasionally need the inverted question mark. See […]
The inverted or Spanish exclamation mark ¡ is available in Microsoft Word, regardless of language setting. There’s even an in-built shortcut. ¡ is most commonly used in Spanish for the start of an exclaiming sentence. As far back as the 1660’s there have been attempts to introduce ¡ inverted exclamation to denote irony. Despite its […]
You might think the simple ! exclamation mark is obvious in Microsoft Word or Office but there’s more possible even with this humble symbol. We’ll show you ways to insert FIVE different exclamation marks into Office, as characters, symbols and emoji with infinite variations possible on those five base symbols. We’re not including the inverted […]
Don’t bother using cut / paste to manually sorting or adjusting a list. There’s a faster shortcut for moving a line or paragraph around a Word document which isn’t in the usual lists of Word keyboard shortcuts. Word has a simple shortcut to that move the current line or paragraph up or down without selecting […]
Here’s some other problems with the Word Sort feature and tricks to work around them. Generally speaking, long or complex sorting is better done in Excel. Excel has much better data management features to split and sort. The final result can be copied into Word. Sort a list of names by surname or more in […]
Word’s Sort feature is OK, up to a point but has its limitations.We humans insist on variations of the simple ‘first and last’ name that confuse a computer. For short lists, it’s probably enough to do a Word surname sort then manually adjust the list for any anomalies. Longer lists need the power of Excel […]
Yet again, Microsoft Word is beaten by mere humans when we pit the software against words used in the 2019 Spelling Bee finals. We made a list of some words from the 2019 Spelling Bee finals including the last eight words which confirmed the winners. See for yourself how Microsoft Word did against the human […]
Excel has a new currency option. Bitcoin BTC is now available as a Currency symbol or text from the main list but we’ll show how to get it now on any version of Excel. There are four options available: Bitcoin symbol ₿ prefix ₿12.34 Bitcoin symbol ₿ suffix 12.34 ₿ Bitcoin code BTC prefix BTC […]
How to easily make and receive appointments with other people using Outlook. This is a feature that’s been in Outlook for many, many years and so is often overlooked amid the hype for the latest ‘exciting’ thing from Microsoft. We’ll look at how to send an create an appointment to send out and what to […]
There are some simple Microsoft Word tricks to squeeze a Table of Contents (or Table of Figures etc) into less pages. Here’s an example of a Table of Contents (ToC) that’s grown too big using Word’s default settings. It’s creeped over to a second page. We’ve seen ToC’s for big documents that take up many, […]
If you have included tables in a document, Word can generate a list of them all for you. Like a Table of contents, this list or Table of tables can include page references or links to each table. A Table of tables can be useful for creating a proper appendix or reference within more formal […]
If you have included equations in a document, Word can generate a list of them all for you. Like a table of contents, this list or Table of Equations can include page references or links to each equation. A Table of Equations can be useful for creating a proper appendix or reference within more formal […]
If you have included images, graphs, tables or equations in a document, Word can generate a list of all of these, for you. Like a table of contents, this list can include page references or links to each figure or picture. A Table of Figures can be useful for creating a proper appendix of figures […]
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. […]
There are shortcuts that automatically format bold and italic text in Word. The same shortcuts and more work in WhatsApp texting as well. AutoFormatting Bold and Italics as you type In Microsoft Word and Outlook it’s possible to make words bold or italic as you’re typing. For touch-typists that’s faster than stopping to highlight text […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Word can check if you use a single or double space after a sentence (fullstop/period) but how can it be changed single space to double throughout a document? The Sentence Spacing settings (single, double or don’t care) is in Word’s Grammar settings see Sentence Spacing in Word. These days, sentences more commonly separate with a […]
Word can check if you use a single or double space after a sentence (fullstop/period) but how can it be changed throughout a document? Make all sentences end with a single space instead of double spaces, triple or more. The Sentence Spacing settings (single, double or don’t care) is in Word’s Grammar settings see Sentence […]
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 […]
Let’s look at the basic options for making a Table of Contents (TOC) in a Word document. The basic TOC options haven’t changed for a long time. The look of the dialog boxes and galleries changed with Word 2007 however under those superficial features, the fundamentals are the same. Table of Contents is very easy […]
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 […]
Here’s a quick and easy way to totally erase file, folders or free disk space so there’s no trace of the original data. Also erasing an entire drive before handing over or selling. As you may know, deleting a file doesn’t really remove it from your computer. Even after deleting from the Recycle Bin, the […]
How can you tell if you’re reading email in a web browser or using email software like Outlook for Windows or Mac? This might seem obvious to some but many people use ’email’ without understanding the important difference between webmail and email programs. There are two ways to read and send emails: use software/apps like […]
