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.
Faster Office File management on the fly
The File Open and Save dialog boxes in Office have many not-obvious features which let you do a lot of file management and housekeeping on the spot. You try to save a document and realize you need a new sub-folder. Or open a document and want to move it to a different folder. Or just […]
Smaller images make smaller documents in Word and Office
Pictures in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook can make the file sizes at lot larger than you expect. Here’s how to make images smaller (in file size) for Office documents without changing the look of the document, slide etc. The images in a document are what take up a lot of space in most documents. […]
Microsoft (again) announces 365 Basic plan extras
Microsoft has announced ‘extras’ for Microsoft 365 Basic but we can’t see anything new that wasn’t promised over a year ago and delivered six months ago. It’s a just a simple PR stunt that worked. The ‘Microsoft 365 Basic’ plan has just 100GB of OneDrive storage plus a 50GB Outlook.com mailbox for US$19.99 a year […]
Paper Sizing tricks in Microsoft Word
The world can be divided in many ways — how about by paper sizes? Letter/Legal/US sizes vs A4/Metric. Microsoft Word makes it easy to cope with both even with different paper sizes in one document. There’s a very handy way to rescale between Letter <> A4 for printing. Amazing Maps on X/Twitter shows the two […]
Coin 🪙 emoji in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
How to insert the Coin 🪙 symbol or emoji into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. How Coin 🪙 looks in different fonts Only Segoe UI Emoji font has the coin symbol in standard Windows. Coin 🪙 codes These are the important code numbers or values […]
Share a link to a specific PowerPoint slide
There’s a way to link someone to view a specific slide in a PowerPoint presentaion which is a lot faster than hunting through a big slide deck. Providing a direct link to a specific part of your slideshow not only streamlines the process of receiving feedback but also enables them to locate the content you […]
Translate automatic or manual in Outlook
Outlook for Windows has both automatic and manual options to translate incoming messages into a language you understand. We’ll explain the choices available and the Outlook settings that are in a strange order. Microsoft Translator supports over 100 languages, enabling users to translate text across a diverse array of linguistic contexts. You can easily translate […]
Why are Teams and Office divorcing?
Teams app is being forced out of the Microsoft Office bundle. It’s a compulsory divorce with a side-benefit for anyone who doesn’t use Teams or doesn’t use it often. Microsoft has now decided (under duress) to stop selling their Teams app as part of Microsoft Office / Microsoft 365 bundles throughout the world. That’s an […]
Pivotby – Excel’s new faster PivotTables
Pivotby() is a new and easy way to make PivotTables in Excel. It’s one of two new ‘aggregation functions’ but we prefer to call them fast summary powers. We’ll dig into the detail of what PivotBy() can do. Excel has been able to group or combine data for many years but now all you need […]
All about editing an incoming Outlook message
For many readers being able to edit incoming Outlook messages is just a handy feature, but for anyone in the legal or corporate world it could have ‘interesting’ consequences. In Outlook for Windows, open the email in a full window (not the Reading Pane) then go to Message | Move | Other Move Actions | […]
What “Update License” means on Microsoft 365 menus
What’s the story behind the “Update Licence” option that’s appearing in Microsoft 365 apps? What does it mean and when to use it? In Microsoft 365 for Windows you might see a new item on the bottom of the File menu called “Update Licence”. It’s strangely prominent and misleading, based on question from our readers. […]
Excel’s warning about dates and centuries
There’s a useful but niche Excel warning about date with two digits for the century. That’s a useful precaution but sometimes the warning is wrong! Those of us around at the turn of the century will remember the Y2K problems and possible mistakes with a date that has only two digits. For example, “15 April […]
Write Excel formulas fast with free Copilot
Copilot AI makes writing Excel formulas a lot easier but you still need to check the results to make sure Copilot has understood want you want and gives the right answer. There’s a lot of hype and promises about how AI can help make work easier. That’s not as true as Microsoft and others are […]
Easter images and icons in Microsoft Office
Drop in some Easter flavor to your documents, slides or emails from right inside Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Excel. Either religious (Ascension, Crucifix etc) or secular (eggs, chocolate, bunnies) images and graphics are available. Modern Office, especially Microsoft 365 have stock images and icons from a large collection compiled by Microsoft. Stock Images, Icons and […]
Credit Card 💳 symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
There’s more than one Credit Card 💳 image available in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. How Credit Card 💳 looks in different fonts. Only two standard Windows fonts have the credit card symbol; Segoe UI Emoji and Segoe UI Symbol. The Apple device version is […]
Start Grouping in Excel for better looking sheets
Grouping in Excel lets you collapse or expand sections of a sheet so you can see the ‘big picture’ but still drill-down to how totals were made. Another use for grouping is hiding rows or columns from view. You can organize and manage data more effectively by grouping together rows or columns. This feature is […]
