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.
It’s about time – easy checkboxes coming to Excel
Excel 365 is getting a simple way to add checkboxes into cells to easily set True/False, Yes/No, On/Off binary settings. You can hear the cries of “About bloody time” across the Excel world <g>. It’s long been possible to add a checkbox into an Excel worksheet but it’s a clumsy setup, to put it mildly. […]
Fixed: Outlook bug showing restore items dialog
Microsoft has fixed a bug in Outlook for Windows which wrongly popped up the notice “Outlook closed while you had items open. Reopen those items from your last session?” When Outlook closes with items open (email, appointment etc.), it should offer to reopen those items when Outlook next starts. The message looks like this: Outlook […]
How Excel’s hidden CalcChain can catch data cheats
There’s a hidden part of Excel which can be used to catch ‘data cheats’ or people who tweak workbooks to get the results they want. There’s a news story about research into honesty, the academic is being accused, ironically, of dishonesty in their findings. The Professor is suspected of tampering with source data to change […]
OneDrive Personal Vault, deep inside and tricks
OneDrive Personal Vault is available to Microsoft 365 users across the globe. It’s an extra security level for your most important and private files. Here’s how to setup, use it and work with Office documents in the Vault folder. OneDrive Personal Vault is a more secure extension to standard OneDrive. It’s now available to all Microsoft […]
Microsoft 365 Basic finally gets all the security features
The low-cost Microsoft 365 Basic plan is now getting all the security features that were promised back in January when the plan was released. Microsoft 365 Basic’s main features are 100GB of OneDrive storage and a 50GB Outlook.com mailbox for US$20 a year. In January 2023 the plan was announced with vague promises of advanced […]
Microsoft get pushy selling Office Add-ins
Microsoft Office Add-ins are about to get a bit more ‘pushy’ with the addition of a fixed ‘Get Add-ins’ item to the File menu. Part of Microsoft’s continuing and somewhat desperate effort to get commissions from third-party software makers. Microsoft has been pushing Office add-ins for years, hoping to get commissions from selling Office third-party […]
Use a Hidden Registry Hack to Improve Your Privacy with Microsoft Office
Use a hidden registry hack to protect your privacy by reducing the amount of private info Microsoft Office apps send to Microsoft. Dr Aleksandar Milenkoski, working for the German Federal Office for Information Security, has produced a report on what information Microsoft Office software sends back to the company. That’s information about when and how Office […]
How to disable the Windows shortcut key to Office apps
You can disable the “Hyper” “Office” key or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Win shortcuts to open Microsoft 365 and Office apps. We’ve told you about the Office Keyboard Shortcuts in Windows 11 and 10 which start by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Win together. That clumsy four-finger shortcut is an alternative to the Office key which Microsoft tried to introduce back in 2019 to almost […]
Stethoscope 🩺 emoji in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
How to insert the Stethoscope 🩺 symbol/emoji into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Trivia: the stethoscope was invented by a Frenchman who was embarrassed putting his ear upon a lady’s chest to hear her heartbeats. His original was a simple tube, not the dual-ear device we […]
Bharat or Bhārat (India) in Microsoft Word
The alternative name for India is Bhārat and that term is now being used, somewhat controversially, by the government. How does Microsoft Word handle “Bharat” and what are your choices for either using the word or not. Even if you’re not interested in the name change, it’s a practical lesson in what’s possible in the […]
What is Dall-E and what it’ll do for Microsoft 365 customers
Microsoft is adding Dall-E to new services for Microsoft 365 (Designer), Bing and Office (starting with Word). Let’s look at what Dall-E is, what it can do for you and the fun to be had. In short, Dall-E turns text into an image with often good and sometimes funny results. Dall-E converts a text request […]
Interesting extras coming to Windows 11
Microsoft has announced some of the extras coming to the next version of Windows 11, rolling out from September 26 onwards. Here’s a quick look at some of these changes, in particular those which can improve your Office docs, sheets, slides and emails. Paint Paint app receives a major upgrade for better digital drawing and […]
OneTastic and OneCalendar essentials for OneNote
Over the past ten years, OneTastic and its early version, OneCalendar, have established themselves as vital tools for dedicated OneNote users. These applications, developed as a passion project by Omer Atay from the OneNote product group, have proven especially beneficial for users who frequently record meeting notes across various sections of their notebooks. OneCalendar A […]
Listen to free audiobooks from Microsoft and Project Gutenberg
Microsoft and Project Gutenberg have joined to create thousands of audiobooks for free, using modern ‘text to speech’ technology that’s amazingly good. And we have some tips on how to create audiobooks with more variety in voice, accent and pace. Since 1971, Project Gutenberg has compiled a wide range of copyright free ebooks in many […]
Microsoft’s font substitution for Aptos really sucks
Microsoft’s alternatives for the new Aptos fonts range are very poor. In some cases, the substitutions make no sense at all. We’ve looked at what happens if a document with Aptos fonts is opened Office 2016 and earlier versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Aptos fonts are the new default for Microsoft 365 and […]
Two Important Differences to Know about the Python Excel Trial Release
The trial release of Python in Excel is very interesting but it’s not the usual “Insiders” feature release with two important differences that will cost you later. “Insiders” is Microsoft’s name for their beta testing option to try upcoming features to the public Office apps. Excel gets Python – who, when and why Usually features […]
