All about Microsoft Office for Apple Mac. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook on macOS, Microsoft 365 for Mac, Office 2021 for Mac and earlier versions.
Excel’s order of calculation is not BODMAS
Excel has a slightly different order of calculation to the BODMAS rule taught to us at school. Those variations are important and can give a result you didn’t expect. Ray E from Iowa asked about one of those tricky algebra questions that appear on social media and generate heated arguments -10^2 . Ray wondered how […]
Forget what you’ve heard, Word still has a Thesaurus
Ignore the clickbait headlines and social media experts, Microsoft Word still has a Thesaurus feature. A slightly related feature has gone but Synonyms is still alive and kicking. Here’s Word’s Thesaurus or “Synonyms” still in Word 365 using Microsoft’s example word. And here’s Synonyms in Word 2024, using a more appropriate example word for this […]
What Microsoft ‘forgot’ say in an email to Microsoft 365 customers
Microsoft sent a promo email headed “Your Microsoft 365 subscription just got better”, be aware of the details that Microsoft either missed. ‘forgot’ or buried in the fine print. That email explains about Copilot arriving in Microsoft 365 but little on the severe limitations and nothing on the price rise. As the old song goes […]
How to Disable Copilot in Microsoft 365
Microsoft is slowly adding an option to disable Copilot AI from their Microsoft 365 apps, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Here’s what you’re supposed to see on your computer, but won’t necessarily. An option to disable Copilot is being rolled out to Microsoft 365 for Windows and Mac. First in Word 365 for Windows and later […]
Microsoft 365 price increases around the world
See how the price of Microsoft 365 Personal and Family has risen in USA, Canada, UK, Europe and many other countries. The new prices for Microsoft 365 consumer plans include Copilot with many limits and a high price. In some countries, it’s the first price rise in many years, despite inflation and many more features […]
Two ways to make a running total in Excel
Here’s two ways to make a running total column in Excel. The way you were probably taught and a much better and more flexible choice. Running or Accumulative Totals are a very common thing in spreadsheets. Here’s a really simple example in columns C and E. Here’s two ways to make those totals, using Sum() […]
Delete or hide comments in a Word document
All your choices for deleting or hiding comments in Word documents. An essential step before sending a document out. Comments in a Word document are really great for making side-notes or even discussions between people working on a shared document. It’s also great for adding your own notes to a document. But there’s some problems […]
Copilot comes to Microsoft 365 with many limits and a high price
Microsoft 365 Family and Personal plans are getting Copilot AI integration into their Office apps but it comes with a big price increase and many limits to what people get for the extra cost. Customers in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand have seen massive prices rises in Microsoft 365 Family and Personal […]
Too Many Microsoft Outlooks? Clear Up the Confusion in Simple Terms
If you’ve ever been baffled by all the different things Microsoft calls Outlook, you’re not alone. Microsoft uses the “Outlook” name for multiple apps, web services, mobile clients and desktop programs. From Outlook (classic) for Windows to Outlook.com and the Outlook mobile app, making it hard to know which version you’re actually using or talking […]
Word field codes for everyone
Word field codes let you add automation or automatic content into documents. A simple example is the { DATE } field, which inserts the current date into a letter but there’s a lot more possible. Chances are good that you’ve already used field codes and not realised it. Date, PrintDate, Page numbering (current and total […]
Excel has ‘real’ Regular Expression functions
Microsoft Excel 365 has built-in support for regular expressions (regex). The functions REGEXTEST, REGEXEXTRACT and REGEXREPLACE have powerful pattern matching, text extraction and replacement directly into spreadsheet formulas, eliminating the need for VBA, add-ins or convoluted workarounds. Even better, the functions use a widely understood form of Regex for text-manipulation capabilities, data cleaning, validation and […]
All the Outlook solutions to ‘Spy Pixels’ in emails
The many different Microsoft Outlook versions have a way to block images linked to emails, that includes the so-called ‘spy pixels’ used by many companies. See ‘Spy Pixels’ email epidemic, the good and the bad You can choose to view pictures in an Outlook email by clicking a button at the top of each message. […]
Important Microsoft 365 and Office events to watch in 2025
2025 promises to be ‘interesting’ for Microsoft 365 and Office users, not always in a good way. Here’s some of the predictable events. What I can guarantee in 2025 is more Copilot and Outlook (new) hype – some justified and some stretching credibility. Happy New Year! Office 2016 and Office 2019 end All Office 2016 […]
Microsoft 365 money saving chance – if you act now
Microsoft 365 Family and Personal users have a chance to beat the price rise widely expected to come in 2025. You can lock in the current price for up to five years. Why the expected price increase for Microsoft 365? Microsoft has already raised the price of Microsoft 365 in some countries with the “Microsoft […]
Adding your name and other personal words to Microsoft Word
If Word doesn’t recognize personal words such as your name, the name of your hometown or the name of your favorite actor, it flags it as a mistake with the familiar red squiggly line. Here’s how to fix that. You can choose to add your words to the app’s custom dictionary. This is one of […]
Great Excel monthly calendar from just one cell
Modern Excel lets you make a whole monthly calendar from just one cell formula. We’ll explain how it’s done with a sample workbook for our supporters. At its simplest, Excel can make a single month like this from a formula in cell A6 which fills all the cells with the correct dates for that month. […]
