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.
Word is getting text prediction but who needs it?
Maybe it’s just us, but the news that Microsoft Word is soon getting a text prediction option does NOT qualify as good news. It’s a right PITA. Text prediction is a new cloud service from Microsoft. It’s currently in Outlook online for Microsoft 365 hosted mailboxes and some Microsoft 365 insiders. Office Watch told you […]
How to get Microsoft 365 extended offline time
Microsoft has finally agreed to help out customers who are offline for a long time and can’t keep their Microsoft 365 activated with a regular Internet connection. People on ships or other isolated places might use their computer offline for weeks or months. Ever since Microsoft changed to counting each login (not installs) that’s been […]
Office ‘all-in-one’ app, get it now for iPad
The Office ‘all in one’ app, already available for iPhone and Android, is starting its arrival on Apple iPad. The app combines Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other goodies into a single app. The ‘all in one’ app, officially called just ‘Microsoft Office’ has started a limited preview. We’ll explain how to get it now, either […]
New look Dictation coming to Word for Windows
Microsoft is adding new features and interface to Dictation in Word for Windows. Voice commands, auto punctuation and even a !@$#$ profanity filter. Clicking the Dictation button on the Home tab or pressing Alt + ` now opens a dialog at bottom center of the document. It will start ‘Listening’ right away. Tap on the […]
Seven new languages for Word & Outlook Dictation
Microsoft has announced seven extra languages added to their ‘speech to text’ Dictation feature in Outlook and Word. The new languages announced are: Hindi Russian Polish Portuguese (Portugal) Korean Thai Chinese (Taiwan) Your milage will vary As a cloud service, the available languages will vary. It depends on the version of Microsoft 365, where you […]
Inside new Natural Language Search for Outlook
Microsoft is hyping natural language searches in Outlook for Windows and Mac, so we dug down to see how it works and for whom. There’s a lot of ‘gotchas’ overlooked in the boasting. According to Microsoft, Outlook now has better searches: “With Natural Language in search, you simply type the way you would ask a […]
Visio can now export to Word
Visio now has an option to export diagrams directly into Word. Export to Word has been in preview for about a year. It’s now available to all users on Visio Online Plan 2 The feature doesn’t just export the diagram images. Metadata is also exported in a table. Process | Export to Word opens a […]
Auto Fix coming to PowerPoint and not a moment too soon
PowerPoint is getting a new feature ‘Auto Fix’ that Office users have wanted for many, many years. We hope it’s the start of deployment to Word and Excel across all platforms. Auto Fix is a way to automatically arrange a collection of shapes and other objects into neat rows and proper alignment. It does the […]
Currency ¤ Symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
How to insert the Currency ¤ or scarab symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Currency ¤ symbol is used to denote an unspecified currency. It’s the generic sign you could use if the correct symbol isn’t available. It doesn’t seem to be used a […]
AutoCorrect is great for larger blocks of text & acronyms in Word
How to use AutoCorrect for more than a word or single character. It can speed up typing of large blocks of text or expanding an acronym into the full name. Paul G writes: “Autocorrect is fantastic for the numerous standard letters, or specific instructions for various computer actions (downloads, etc). 1. I prepare the fully […]
New dark mode in Microsoft Word
Word 365 for Windows now has an even darker dark mode option which changes the page area to black with white text. Until now ‘Dark Mode’ only applied to the ribbon and other interface areas, not the document area. The newly extended Dark mode only changes the look on the edit screen – what Microsoft […]
How new is the Microsoft Office interface really?
A fascinating article digs into the ‘new’ Windows 10 look to reveal that it’s not as new as Microsoft hype would have you believe. Some parts of Windows 10 are over 25 years old and it’s a similar story in Microsoft Office, despite the Ribbon. It’s the same in Microsoft Office, scratch the Ribbon and […]
Van Gogh masterpieces right into your PowerPoint slides
The full collection of Van Gogh masterpieces are available online, ready to be used in PowerPoint slides. Here’s how to get good quality images of the great man’s work and use them wisely in slides. Not interested in Van Gogh? These tips show how to fit any image into PowerPoint as a picture or slide […]
Apple Privacy tags don’t tell the whole story with Office
Apple’s new Privacy tags sound like a great idea but they rely on the honesty of app makers (Ha!) The simple labels can cover an enormous amount of privacy intrusion in Microsoft Office and Outlook mobile apps. The Washington Post is behind a paywall but the ‘general tenor of his spray’ is that each developer […]
Outlook.com / Hotmail mailbox size shock and how to fix it
Outlook.com / Hotmail users got a shock when told can’t send or receive email because their mailbox is way too big. What’s happening and what to do about it? Free Outlook.com accounts have a 15GB storage limit but some users have managed to go way over that quota without complaint from Microsoft. Until the last […]
More right pointing hand symbols in Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Here are some more ‘right pointing’ symbol options for Word, Excel, PowerPoint or any Microsoft Office app. We’ve already looked in detail at: White Right Pointing Index Hand ☞ Right arrow → symbol Now let’s see some other ‘right pointing’ options that can be used in Office documents. Right pointers are especially handy in bulleted […]
