Check an Excel option for little performance boost
There’s an obscure little Excel option that’s worth checking to give you a little performance boost. The choice is File | Option | Advanced | Print | “Include fonts that are stored on the printer” An obscure option that most people never bother with. “Printer fonts” are fonts in the printer itself which Windows can […]
Monospace font makes a difference to Excel formulas
Excel 365 for Windows and web have a different font for the formula bar. The monospace font should be easier to read and understand. For as long as there’s been Excel, formulas have been shown in a proportional font. Probably to fit as much text into the available screen space. Now screens are larger and […]
Value Preview is coming to Excel formulas
Excel 365 for Windows and Web is getting a great new feature called Value Preview. You’ll be able to see the current value of any formula part just by hovering over it. It’s simple and most people won’t even notice it except by accident. Just hover the mouse over part of a formula to see […]
Office 2019 & 2016 lose an important part of their support
Microsoft has stopped supporting connections from Office 2019 and Office 2016 to their Microsoft 365 online services. It’s another ‘passive aggressive’ move to get customers off older versions of Office and onto Microsoft 365. Both Office 2019 and Office 2016 will continue to be supported with bug and security fixes until late 2025 however Microsoft […]
Color selection in Office for Mac, complete
Office for Mac has quite different and extensible color selection options for text, shapes, pages etc. that are the envy of Office for Windows. We’ll explain them all, eyedropper, swatch, color wheel or sliders, palettes and even pencils. Choose from the same range of colors as Windows, but in many different ways and more. All […]
All the Color Picking tools in Microsoft Office
Here’s all the match colors, color picking or color grab tools in Microsoft Office for Windows or Windows itself. While Office for Mac users have it a lot easier with one central ‘eyedropper’ to choose a color from the screen. Naming the color picking tool isn’t consistent in Microsoft Office, it’s called an Eyedropper in […]
Get Python in Google Sheets
Google Sheets can now support Python code in a similar but cheaper way than Python in Excel 365 Neptyne has released a Python Add-on for Google Sheets which works in much the same way at the newly released Python extension to Excel 365. The add on includes ‘spilling’ results to nearby cells and a Package […]
Halloween emoji, fast find and copy
Need a Halloween emoji or symbol? Here’s a quick and searchable list of more than 30 spooky, scary emoji for documents, sheets, slides, emails or messages that you can use or copy. In Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and Office 2019 there are also Halloween icons and symbols for Word, Powerpoint and more or see all […]
Add Skeleton and Skull to Word, PowerPoint and Office
Office has various options for graphics or images of skeletons or skulls – perfect for Halloween or other gory, scary uses in Word docs, PowerPoint slides or Outlook emails. We can’t offer a 12-foot skeleton, complete with creepy glowing eyes. For this 3.56 meter monster you have to hunt through Home Depot stores in the […]
PowerQuery mystery solved – how to Remove Duplicates, keeping most recent record
Excel 365’s PowerQuery has many wonderful features but occasionally there are common needs that it can’t easily handle. One of those surprising complexities is removing older duplicates but retaining most recent row for each. We’ll explain the simplest solution then why it works. Here’s some sample data on the left and the most recent purchase […]
Xlookup is truly a great Excel function
One of the most commonly used and confusing Excel functions is much better in Excel 365 and Excel 2021. Vlookup() has a new, better and easier replacement Xlookup(). It’s a truly good and useful addition to Excel, some might call it a godsend. Xlookup is available in Excel 365 for Windows/Mac/Apple/Android plus Excel 2021 for […]
Anesthetists discover how NOT to use Excel
A British medical office has made a right mess of selecting trainee anesthetists by the misuse of Excel. Let’s look at what happened and some ways you can avoid similar mistakes. As told in The Register, the UK Anesthetic National Recruitment Office (ANRO) had the job of selecting candidates from across seven regions to get […]
All about Safe mode in Microsoft Office
Safe Mode is a special way for Office apps to run when things aren’t working properly. Here’s how to use Safe Mode, if Office doesn’t offer it automatically, and what Safe Mode does differently. Safe Mode is useful in situations where you cannot open files in normal mode because the app is crashing, or you […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
