Once you start delving into Word, you find it can do all sorts of things that you wouldn’t expect. One of these is that it can be used to create barcodes, and it’s surprisingly easy to do. Once you’ve made your barcodes, they can be scanned with any barcode scanner or an app on your […]
One of the sillier online debates is an argument about the usefulness of algebra and other maths skills in a world where Excel is available on almost any screen. To us this is silly because it’s not a simple either/or choice. It’s about balance, a concept that’s not fashionable these days, sigh. This all started […]
Inserting a link to a PDF (or any other file) into a Word document or email is easy to do. All you need is the web link to the PDF and paste it into your document or email. The key question to ask is ‘Where is the PDF located or saved to?’. Next question is […]
Font Embedding is an important part of document portability. It’s available in Microsoft Word for Windows and has (finally) been added Font Embedding to Word for Mac. When you share a document or even move to another computer, it does NOT include the necessary fonts. Word assumes that all the needed fonts will be installed […]
Word has four 2019 calendars in the File | New templates supplied by Microsoft. Search for ‘2019 calendar’ in the File | New pane. There are two 2019 calendar designs: Yearly calendar on a single page Monthly calendar (one page per month). Each has two variants, depending on which day you consider the start of […]
If you do enjoy the stuff we do here at Office Watch we’d really appreciate it if you’d chuck a few dollars at our first ever fundraising drive. We won’t bore you about how hard it is to stay afloat in the modern media (though it’s very true). The financial support of readers is the […]
Another way to convert text to dates is by adding zero to the text. This is a trick which forces Excel to convert the text into an Excel value so it can then add the zero. Since adding zero doesn’t change the value, you end up with text converted to an Excel value. It’s a […]
A new email trick to fool people into clicking a link from Outlook. It’s a ‘warning’ that your mailbox is near it’s size limit. The message was a little sophisticated by pretending to come from the real company that handles the domain. It was sent to an address with a domain managed by GoDaddy (the […]
Here’s how to make a custom ribbon tab in Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook and how Microsoft has left customers shortchanged for the last decade. We’ve already talked about customizing the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) for certain documents. You can make the QAT adapt according to the document you’ve opened. Alas, that’s not possible […]
Not all Word documents need the same tools. Some special documents are easier to make with tools added to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) just for the occasion. Changing the Quick Access Toolbar has been around since Office 2007 but it’s less well-known that you can change it for certain types of documents. The QAT […]
aka The lie that’s stopped you from more secure online accounts. For some years we’ve been banging on about Two-Factor Authentication. ‘2-fac’ is one of the main protections against online hacking and identity theft. Savvy online users have 2Fac for their main online accounts: Microsoft/Office 365 account, Google. Facebook, banking and especially any email hosting. […]
When you first go into Teams it’s a confusing jungle of terms and options. As usual, Microsoft assumes we’ve all been born knowing how their software is arranged. It’s not as difficult as it looks … once you get the structure or logic of Microsoft Teams. Wrap your head around Microsoft Teams with this article […]
Office 2011 for Mac is just one of many programs that won’t work at all on the upcoming MacOS release ‘Mojave’. That’s not a surprise for anyone who follows Apple’s policy announcements. Many years ago, Apple warned that they’d eventually stop supporting 32-bit programs with 64-bit applications becoming the required standard. Among the programs that […]
It seems every other business is using the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as an excuse to sell something, so Office Watch has joined the bandwagon … with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Our book Keep Calm with Microsoft Office has sample Word documents and PowerPoint slides which have the original ‘Keep […]
You’ve been getting a lot of special emails from companies about the data and emails they send you. That’s all because of GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation that comes into force on 25 May 2018. We’ll explain a little about GDPR below but first we’ll explain what will change at Office Watch. No change, […]
The right-click menu is a powerful part of modern computers. It lets you quickly access options in Windows, Mac and Microsoft Office. Right-click is such a basic part of personal computing that it works even on devices without a mouse! We love ‘stupid’ questions because they’re rarely stupid at all. Yesterday Peter was asked a […]
Will Dormann in exposing the half-measure Outlook patch also shows that more complex passwords with mixed-case letters plus digits and symbols is better than a simple long password. The highest length of time to crack an 8 character password from NTLMv2 hash with a mere single mid-range GPU. Longer passwords are better but you don’t need […]
Here’s how to use the font kerning settings in Microsoft Office, Word and PowerPoint. See our short guide to kerning to understand the settings and artistry behind kerning. Kerning letters makes a difference as the letters get larger so the setting is more important for headings and titles in Word and PowerPoint. Windows and Mac […]
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 […]
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times … ignore or delete any .DOC .XLS .PPT files you get via email or shared. The main carrier of virus infection is Microsoft Office documents, a fact that Microsoft doesn’t like to talk about. What Microsoft doesn’t say is that the major source of […]
