Microsoft 365 – the subscription / annual fee plan for Microsoft Office on Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android.
Includes Word 365, Excel 365, PowerPoint 365, Outlook 365 and many other ‘365’ programs, apps and services.
Replying to emails with colored backgrounds
Outlook replies can be a problem of invisible or hard to read text when the incoming email has a color background. We’ll explain the problem and how to fix your reply email. Messages with colored backgrounds might look OK to the sender but are a pain when you try to reply or forward. Most of […]
Outlook Email: why Format Background is called Page Color
If you want to change the background color on an email, Outlook’s option to do that has changed name and location. At least Windows users can change background color, Outlook for Mac users lost this option at few years ago! A color background can be nice in an email but care is necessary when replying […]
Look and sound your best for an online Christmas
Looks like many people will be using Zoom, Facetime, Skype or Teams to meet up with family and friends over Christmas. Take a few moments to get ready, look and sound your best for family and friends. All through 2020/2021, Office Watch expanded its coverage to include no-nonsense guides to using Zoom, Teams., Skype and […]
Turn on or off the new look Office 365 for Windows
The new look Office 365 (and Office 2021) is coming. For the moment you might have the option to try it or not. Here’s how. Look for the megaphone If a megaphone appears on an Office app title bar, you can try the new look Office for Windows. Click on the icon to open the […]
2001: A Space Odyssey and font kerning
We’ve looked at design and typography in 2001: A Space Odyssey and how to use the ‘2001’ look in Microsoft Office. Two readers asked about some curious kerning in our version of the title font.Maybe you’re not interested in the fine detail of the text in a fifty year old film? Fair enough. We’re going […]
Word tables for formatting magic
Use Word tables to do formatting tricks, make complex formats easily and solve Word formatting problems. There’s more to Word tables than just showing grids of information like this: Tables have all sorts of little tricks in them and let you do clever things in Word. Here’s a look at some of those tricks … […]
Grabbing audio only from online sources like YouTube
There are many ways to add common sound effects and background music to your PowerPoint videos. But what if you wanted audio from an online source like YouTube? You can copy from online to an audio file, save it to your computer then link into a slide deck. There are many tools to ‘rip’ a video with audio from YouTube that’s against the YouTube terms […]
Up Down Arrow ↕ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Type the Up Down Arrow ↕ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Up Down Arrow ↕ symbol is a vertical line with arrowheads on both ends, pointing up and down. How Up Down Arrow ↕ looks in different fonts. Here’s some examples of how Up Down Arrow ↕ looks in common Office fonts. Up Down Arrow ↕ codes These are the […]
Pantone 2022 color in your Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Pantone has announced their “Color of the Year” for 2022 and, as usual, we’ll explain how to use those exact colors in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. For 2022, the new color will also be appearing in Microsoft products with a nice PowerPoint template with extra color palettes. The color of 2022 is … Very […]
Watch the Excel World Cup Final
The Financial Modelling World Cup or Excel esports Final was held a few days ago and you can watch the whole event. There were eight finalists from the USA, Canada, UK, India and Australia. If you can’t get enough of Excel champs at work, check out the earlier rounds. Last 128 & Last 64 (Session […]
Microsoft 365 price increase for monthly payments
In January 2022 there are important changes to the volume licence Business and Enterprise plans for Microsoft 365, Office and Windows. Monthly plans will cost 20% more, making annual plans more enticing. Microsoft says “introduces a monthly term option that will enable partners to provide customers with flexibility at a premium price,” However, the option to cut short a longer license […]
Up to 25% price increase Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise
Microsoft is increasing the prices on their main Business and Enterprise plans ranging from 9% to 25% effective 1 March 2022 now extended to 14 March 2022. Of course, Microsoft hasn’t stated the price rises in such stark terms. They give the increases as monthly prices (e.g $1 a month) even though most pay yearly. […]
Black Chess Queen ♛ symbol in Word, PowerPoint and Office
Insert the Black Chess Queen ♛ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Black Chess King ♛ symbol is useful for users that want to represent the chess piece as a symbol, rather than an image. Or just a generic crown icon. How Black Chess Queen ♛ looks in different fonts. Examples of how Black Chess Queen ♛ looks in common […]
Microsoft Office users can go legal for less
Microsoft is offering a discount price on Microsoft 365 to people with pirated or illegal Microsoft Office. As usual with Microsoft, there are ‘gotchas’ and unknowns with their special offer. People using illegal or pirated Microsoft Office might be seeing a message like this in their Office apps. The message is: Get up to 50% […]
Action Pen is editing by drawing in Microsoft Word
The Ink Editor button in Word 365 has gone, replaced with the ‘Action Pen’ on the Draw tab in Word 365. Some of the ink gestures have quietly changed since the original release of the Action Pen. The ‘Action Pen’ is now on right-side of the Draw tab | Drawing Tools. The Word 365 for […]
Add fancy title bar pattern to your Office Background
Office Background are the patterns at top right of the title bar in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office apps. Here’s the ‘Underwater’ and ‘Doodle circles’ backgrounds, just two of the 14 you can choose from. Office Backgrounds are fairly pointless decoration. They were added to Office 2013 to almost universal apathy outside the Microsoft Hype Bubble™. There is one minor benefit of the pattern […]
