Sparklines make simple graphs for Excel
A strange name but Sparklines is a useful new part of Excel which makes simple single-cell graphs in Excel for Windows or Mac. Mea Culpa – we thought that ‘Sparklines’ was a fancy name made up by Microsoft after a long liquid lunch … Office Watch readers, John F, Nick M and Peter B all […]
Custom Data Types are great in Excel 365
Microsoft has done a clever thing, combining two important Excel features into a new and really useful addition – Custom Data Types. Excel 365 for Windows/Mac already has Stock and Geography data types to drop live information into workbooks. It’s now possible to make your own Custom Data Types (CDT) that work the same way. […]
When and how to switch from Office 2010 – your questions answered
Office 2010 ends support on 13 October 2020 and we’ve been receiving questions from readers asking about switching to newer Microsoft Office. We’ll answer questions about when to update, what to replace Office 2010 and important factors to consider. We’re hearing concerns about privacy in modern Office, reliability and the constant, monthly, changes in the […]
Microsoft 365 offline! What happened and what you should do
Microsoft 365 suffered a major outage of their online and cloud services. Here’s what we know, where we stand now and how to reduce your risk of trouble with future problems. The online services from Microsoft could not be accessed from about 5pm Monday (US Eastern) that included Office logins, Outlook/Hotmail, Teams and more. It […]
Do you have Application Guard for Microsoft Office?
Microsoft 365 Enterprise customers can now try Application Guard as a new way to protect against malicious documents infecting computers.What is Application Guard and what it means for Office 365 Application Guard is a combination of Windows 10 Defender and Office programs that opens a suspect document in a special way. With hardware virtualization, the […]
Easy Office document hacking with VBA Stomping or Purging
Common programming tools can be used to make malicious Office workbooks which bypass both online security checks and Microsoft’s own protections in Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Access. We’ll explain what’s happening and what Microsoft could do better. VBA Purging or VBA Stomping are clever tricks to make an Office documents (e.g. .xlsm Excel workbook) with […]
Customer login now required to use Microsoft 365 apps
There’s a change in the way Microsoft 365 works with a sign-in to a Microsoft account. This applies to Word 365, Excel 365, PowerPoint 365 and other Office apps. Up to recently, Microsoft 365 / Office 365 has worked normally either when signed into a Microsoft account or not. Having a Microsoft account wasn’t required […]
Stop accidental duplicates in your Excel lists or Tables
Stop duplicate names, email addresses or product SKU’s from being added to an Excel list or Table. Adding more rows to an Excel Tables can be done while preventing accidental duplicates creeping into the list. Excel Tables or lists can grow to hundreds or thousands of rows, there’s a risk of someone entering a duplicate […]
Easy Voting by email in Outlook
Microsoft is releasing a ‘Quick Poll’ option in Outlook ignoring the very similar, voting buttons, option that’s already in Outlook for Windows and Outlook for Mac. Use Voting Buttons to ask a question and Outlook will automatically collect responses. Office Watch also explains how recipient see the voting options and respond. Voting buttons have been […]
Left Right arrow ↔ in Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint and Word
Type the Left Right arrow ↔ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. How Left Right arrow ↔ looks in different fonts. Here’s some examples of how Left Right arrow ↔ looks in common Office fonts. Left Right arrow ↔ codes These are the important code […]
Auto updating your Excel Charts
How to make an Excel chart that changes as you add more cells or rows is really simple these days. Forget all the old stuff about named ranges or changing the Chart data. Setup your Excel list correctly and any linked charts will update automaticall. In a recent article we looked at making a chart […]
Date formatted charts in Excel
The secret to a timeline chart in Excel is the data. Emily writes asking “How can I make an Excel chart with dates on the X axis with a proper time scale – even if the dates aren’t regular? “ We could not understand Emily’s question until we asked for more details. Making a date […]
Double Key encryption coming to Microsoft 365
Microsoft is making an important step towards cloud storage security with the public preview of Double Key Encryption. That means, for the first time, Microsoft customers can secure their data from access, even by Microsoft itself. All the ‘secure’ cloud storage from Microsoft can be accessed by Microsoft. For all their talk about security, the […]
Excel Subscriptions Manager
With all the subscription offerings available (Netflix, HBO, Disney, CBS, Apple, Google, Amazon, Office 365 etc), here’s a way to manage them all from Excel. Along the way we’ll show you some interesting Excel features. We were inspired by Brian X Chen in The New York Times, writing about how easy is it to sign […]
Subscriptions Manager for Excel 2007-2016
We’re happy to release a new version of our Subscriptions Manager that’s compatible with Excel 2007-2016. Subscriptions Manager is a way to list and manage the many online plans we sign up for; HBO, Netflix, Amazon, Spotify and so many more. You can track who pays (in a family) and payment method (card, direct debit […]
Gene names changed to stop confusing Excel
The names of genes are being changed just to stop Excel confusing them with dates during the import process. We’ll explain two ways Excel already works to avoid the geneticist’s problem. Genes named like MARCH1 and SEPT1 which Excel converts into dates when imported the wrong way, usually directly via a CSV text file. Office […]
