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.
Add a manual or forced Page Break in Microsoft Word
There’s a simple way to manually insert or force a page break in Microsoft Word. Also delete a page break later. Word will automatically insert page breaks in your text depending on the size of paper you have selected; they may not be in the place you want them. You can’t delete an automatically inserted page break, […]
What does Word style ‘Automatically update’ really mean?
Every Microsoft Word Style has an option to ‘Automatically Update‘ which sounds great, but can lead to more confusion. Here’s what ‘Automatically Update’ really means, why it’s wise to turn it off and the better alternative. There are many ‘Automatic’ options in Word that are spread all over the place. Here we’re talking about Modify […]
Which Microsoft Office feature badly needs a fix?
For all the changes Microsoft has made to Search (aka Tell Me), they continue to ignore one basic that would make Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook a lot easier to work with. Here’s some examples of how Microsoft Office search badly needs fixing. Search (formerly called “Tell Me”) usually appears in the title bar as […]
Changes to Sharing options in Microsoft Office
The Sharing options in Office are changing, yet again with a new ‘sharing experience’ in all Microsoft Office 365 apps for desktop, web and mobile. We’ll explain the changes, including a few options that Microsoft hasn’t mentioned. All the usual Microsoft buzzwords have been recycled to describe these changes; “streamlined”, “simplified”, “free of distraction”, “experience” […]
Clipchamp is coming to Microsoft’s commercial customers
Microsoft is making Clipchamp available to their Microsoft 365 commercial customers after limiting access to consumer users for too long. As usual, Microsoft’s announcement has many ‘fine print’ details to annoy paying customers. Clipchamp is Microsoft’s online video editing service. It’s been available to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family customers since 2021 but for some […]
Getting started with Clipchamp video editing
Clipchamp, is Microsoft’s video editing software and service. It’s a simple way to create videos easily with text, graphics, effects and transitions. Microsoft 365 consumer customers get extra Clipchamp features. You can try it out here, or download it from the Microsoft Store for Windows. Mac users can get Clipchamp via the App Store. Clipchamp […]
List all available fonts in a Word table
Here’s how to make a list of all the available fonts on a computer by making a table in Word complete with sample text using each font. It makes a Word table of all the fonts, including sample text like this. VBA features on show The code is fairly straight-forward and a simple example of […]
Three ways to insert a Recycle symbol ♻ in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Three ways to insert the Recycle symbol ♻ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. There are many different and specialist Recycle symbols. We’ll focus on the standard, generic symbol, officially called “Black Universal Recycling Symbol” in three forms: Emoji or Unicode symbol, Office Icon and the […]
Teardrop-Spoked Asterisk ✻ in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Insert the Teardrop-Spoked Asterisk ✻ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Heavy Teardrop-Spoked Asterisk ✻ symbol has a circle in the middle with six ‘teardrop’ spokes around it. It has no specific purpose but is a more decorative alternative to the standard asterix * or other bullet […]
Investment Rate of Return is easy in Excel
Excel’s IRR() function is a straightforward way to calculate the rate of return for investments which have regular return/payment dates with amounts which might vary. Such as a simple fixed-interest bond, where cash flows occur at regular intervals such as monthly or yearly. When expressed as a percentage return, it’s a lot simpler to understand. […]
Easily calculate stock and asset returns in Excel
There’s a nice little Excel function that will calculate the rate of return on any asset like a stock or fund including income/dividends with purchases and sales over time. The secret sauce is XIRR() a function which calculates an internal rate of return with uneven interest or dividend payments. In other words, common real-world situations. […]
Office Lens is a useful tool for any smartphone
Office Lens is a good app for iPhone, iPad and Android devices. If you want to convert photos into a Word document (as text) or PDF, the Office Lens is the way to go. Lens has a wonderful straightening trick that turns an off-center photo into something ‘straight on’ which is easier to read and […]
Scanning from within Microsoft Word or Office
Can you scan a picture or document directly into Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook? Certainly, but these days we’re spoiled for choice and have fantastic features like using a smartphone as a simple scanner. Back in the day, you could click a button in Word 2003 to scan a document or image and drop it […]
The faster way to insert pictures into Office documents
An easy and fast way to add pictures into Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. We mentioned a faster way to get a scanned image into Word via the ‘scan to clipboard’ option available in some scanning software. There are similar options available for copying existing image files into Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents as well […]
Jump quickly to graphics with new Word shortcut
The latest enhancement in Word for the web brings a better graphic navigation experience. Now, with keyboard shortcuts alone, you can select and move between graphics like never before. In short, Ctrl + Alt + G or Cmd + Alt/Option + G will select the first graphic in the document and then jump between other […]
Workaround for Outlook slowly saving attachments
There’s a bug in the latest release of Outlook 365 for Windows (Microsoft 365) which makes saving attachments slow to a crawl. Microsoft has a workaround to consider, if you’re desperate. The problem occurs when saving attachments to a network folder directly. There’s a long wait looking at this dialog box. Finally the ‘Save As […]
