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.
Pantone 2021 colors in your Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Pantone has announced not one but TWO ‘colors of the year’ for 2021 and, as usual, we’ll explain how to use those exact colors in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. The colors of 2021 are … Illuminating and Ultimate Grey As usual what’s more amazing than the color is the description that goes with the choice. […]
Get your Holiday ‘sweaters’ for Teams, PowerPoint & more
Microsoft has released some ‘sweater’ backgrounds for Christmas, Hannukah or anytime of year. The PNG images are intended as backgrounds for Teams calls but can be used anywhere. A PowerPoint slide, Word background, Zoom call background or whatever. Adding Virtual Background or blurred video to TeamsAdd your own background image to a Teams call They […]
2020/2021 Academic calendar in Microsoft Word
The only specific 2020/2021 calendar template in Microsoft Word is an academic calendar from August 2020 to July 2021, here’s how to use it and make it better. In File | New search for ‘academic calendar’ there are a few options. We’re looking at ‘Academic year calendar’. A few notes before moving on. Ignore what […]
New look in Microsoft 365 for Mac coming in early 2021
Microsoft 365 for Mac is getting a revamped look for the Home or Start menu in early 2021. Here’s all the new and old features in the Home pane or as Microsoft calls it “Office Start experience” (no kidding) The Home panel changes to be more consistent with what’s visible in Microsoft 365 for Windows […]
Office for Mac now supports M1 chips directly
Microsoft Office 365 and 2019 for Mac (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) now work directly on the new M1 chip. There are a few ‘gotchas’ but support for Apple Silicon is almost complete. Apple is moving away from Intel chips to their own ‘Apple Silicon’ hardware, starting with the M1 chip. As we’ve explained, Microsoft […]
Microsoft Forms are now for everyone
Microsoft Forms is now available for everyone, not just businesses. It’s available to collect information or opinions for any reason. One example is party planning, virtual party at the moment. Ask people for their preferred date, number of people, diet requests etc. All the info is collected and comes to you in a list or […]
Here’s how Gmail can now edit Office docs directly
Google’s Gmail can now directly edit Microsoft Office documents arriving in email attachments. It’s available to all Gmail users, free and paid accounts. It removes a lot of the hassles of exchanging Office documents with Gmail and Google Docs/Sheets/Slides users. No more document conversion hassles … at long last! Email Attachments edited directly Any incoming […]
Teams gets Insider options for early adopters
Microsoft Teams users are getting similar ‘Insider’ or ‘Beta’ options to trial new and changed features. It’s setup similar to the existing ‘Insider’ options for Windows and Office. The naming of Insider levels is similar, but not the same as for Office. Public Preview Channel – the last step before public release of changes to […]
Outline View new in PowerPoint for Android
PowerPoint Mobile for Android is getting an ‘Outline View’ but it’s not like Outline View in Windows or Mac versions of PowerPoint. This Outline View is really an ‘Outline to Presentation’ wizard that lets you make an outline or bullet point list then choose a slide theme to quickly make a presentation. When starting a […]
PowerPoint Outline tricks with Word
You don’t have to write directly onto each PowerPoint slide. Instead write an outline of headings and text, then convert into slides. There are two ways to do it, with Word or directly into PowerPoint. Outline View View | Outline View shows each slide title with bullet points within a slide. Slides can be made, […]
Beware MacOS backdoor hack with fake Word document
Mac computers aren’t immune to hacking and viruses. There’s a new backdoor infiltration out there posing as a Word document and directly targeting Macintosh computers. OceanLotus is interesting because it targets MacOS, trying to open a backdoor through which hackers can get data from Mac computers. Another noteworthy part of the hack is that the […]
How bad is the Microsoft 365 Productivity Score really?
The Microsoft 365 Productivity Score has been raising concerns about staff privacy and intrusion into their ‘Work from Home’ life. We’ll look at what Productivity Score actually does, how it’s changed after public pressure and why administrators might prefer to be intrusive. Productivity Score applies to Microsoft 365 hosted organizations. People or small businesses with […]
Microsoft 365 executive logins sold on the dark web
The Microsoft 365 logins on top executives are being sold on the dark web, allowing hackers direct access to the emails and files of chief executives, directors and managers. ZDnet is reporting that a forum for hackers has an offer to sell login details for Microsoft 365 / Office accounts for, so-called, C-level staff like: […]
Save over €30 on Europe deal for Microsoft 365 – but hurry!
Discounts on Microsoft 365 Family (formerly Home) are rare these days but Amazon in Europe (Deutschland, France etc) have a Cyber Monday offer worth grabbing. Save more than €30 on the regular price of a one year renewal. Amazon Deutschland are selling the £99 package for just £62.07 on Monday 30 Nov only. Amazon France […]
Save over £30 on UK deal for Microsoft 365 – but hurry!
Discounts on Microsoft 365 Family (formerly Home) are rare these days but Amazon UK has a Cyber Monday offer worth grabbing. Save more than £30 on the regular price of a one year renewal. Amazon UK are selling the £79.99 package for just £47.99 on Monday 30 Nov only. The deal ends at midnight Monday […]
Special offer for Microsoft 365 Business Premium or an even cheaper option
If you’re thinking about getting Microsoft 365 email hosting with full Teams and SharePoint, Microsoft has a limited time offer this week only. However, before you jump into their deal, there’s another very similar option that’s even cheaper. Until 30 November 2020, Microsoft is offering 25% discount on their Business Premium service for small businesses. […]