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.
Critical new flaw in Microsoft Outlook allows (too) easy access
All Outlook for Windows have a critical bug which makes it too easy for any hacker to gain access to a computer. It just needs a simple link clicked from an email to bypass Office Protected View protections, even from the Preview pane. So all Outlook’s should be updated asap. Microsoft rates the security bug […]
A good part of Designer has been Erased!
A good part of Designer has been deleted with no notice or explanation. Erase is missing with only a ‘dumb’ alternative. The feature is Erase it let you select and remove parts of an image and automatically fill the area with surrounding content. The entire ‘Erase’ option has disappeared for no reason that Microsoft cares […]
A vital setting that Microsoft 365 admins should check now
All Microsoft 365 administrators should make sure this setting is completely ON to ensure emails are delivered and not marked as spam. It’s a setting many administrators might assume is already on but it’s not. Some email hosts have started stronger enforcement of two email verification systems called SPF and DKIM. While the changed rules […]
A Loop feature that should be in all Office apps
Microsoft Loop has a new feature that should be added to Word and PowerPoint, see what text has been written by Copilot AI instead of a human. Loop is adding a tag (‘floatie’) which shows who wrote some text and includes ‘Copilot’ as one of those authors. That’s a very useful piece of information especially […]
Last minute Heart icons for Valentine’s Day
Need a heart symbol or image for your Valentine’s Day message, email, slide or card? Microsoft Office Icons have many choices available including Icons. Many of the stock or supplied resources in Office have passionate ‘heart’ symbols. As you’ll see, there are some anatomically correct icons among the romantic ones, just ignore them <g>. Icons […]
Using AI tools for a personal touch to Valentine’s Day
The latest AI tools can help add a personal touch to Valentine’s Day images, graphics and text like a love poem. Add some details about your loved one (name, hobbies etc.) and AI can do its magic. Free AI tools like Copilot, Microsoft Designer, Dall-E or ChatGPT can make something that’s individual and unique. In […]
Two ways to change Excel default fonts
There are two options for changing the default fonts in Excel, either for new blank workbooks or existing spreadsheets. Maybe you prefer another font. Perhaps the old default font until mid-2023, Calibri. Or a spreadsheet specialist font like Goldman Sans. Maybe your organization or client has a preferred font? Go ahead and change the font […]
Excel – switch away from Aptos fonts
Here’s the simplest way to switch from Aptos fonts in Excel 365/2021/2019 to either the previous font (Calibri) or some other font. In Excel, Aptos Narrow is the new (mid-2023) default font style with a font size of 11, Black. What if you don’t like the new default font? Aptos fonts haven’t been met with […]
Copilot’s Legal Trap or what you’re giving to Microsoft
Just by using Copilot you’re giving Microsoft free access to anything you do or get from their AI system. It’s a legal trap that everyone needs to keep in mind. We found this buried in the Copilot Terms and Conditions (T&C’s) starting on the Bing web site https://www.bing.com/new/termsofuse (strange place for it to hide). Microsoft’s […]
Essential ways to strengthen your Microsoft account
Most readers of Office Watch will have a Microsoft account but is it as secure as it should be? Two-step authentication is becoming essential for the key Microsoft account. If you have Microsoft 365, OneDrive, Outlook.com, Windows 11/10/8.1/8, Windows Phone or (likely) Skype then you’ll have a Microsoft account. It’s the single login for all […]
How Office improves without customers even noticing
While a lot of Word, Excel and PowerPoint might appear to be the same for decades, there’s a lot of work happening ‘under the hood’ to keep Office working. Gilad Oren at Microsoft has written an interesting piece on how the whole real-time collaboration feature in Microsoft Office has been changed to make it faster […]
Make Images with Google Bard
For yet another way to make AI images, perhaps with a different look, you can now try Google Bard. Bard is Google’s AI helper, now available in ‘most countries’ (Google’s wording) but only in English for the moment. It does all the things we’ve come to expect from a broad AI service, similar to Copilot. […]
Five ways (and more) to type Accent characters in Word and Outlook
More than five ways to type characters with accent, grave, circumflex, tilde, umlaut, dieresis or cedilla in Microsoft Word and Outlook when they aren’t on the keyboard such as á ã à ä Ç ç ē é ê è ë â ê î ô û and many more. Typing accented letters can be a chore […]
Easily compare a series of values with ChiTest() Excel
Compare one set of numbers with another list of values using ChiTest() in Excel. It compares two sets of numbers and gives a single number to show how different the sets are. ChiTest() or ChiSq.Test() sounds like a complex formula that only expert statisticians can understand – not at all! While the math behind ChiTest() […]
Microsoft Word – switch away from Aptos fonts
There are at least two ways to switch away from the new Aptos fonts in Microsoft Word and back to the old Calibri fonts or something else. Microsoft has forced a change to Aptos as the new default font in Word but that change doesn’t suit everyone. In particular, Aptos doesn’t make much (or any) […]
Outlook.com users face sign-in issues with email clients
A technical issue has been affecting Outlook.com users who try to access their accounts using various email clients, Microsoft announced. The problem started on January 23, 2024 was partly resolved late on 31 January and finally on 2 Feb for some but not all customers. Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016 users might have some extra […]
