All about Microsoft Office for Apple Mac. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook on macOS, Microsoft 365 for Mac, Office 2021 for Mac and earlier versions.
The big weakness in Excel’s Data from Picture
Excel Mobile’s Data from Picture has one big problem, it can’t figure out what’s intended to be in one cell and puts text in many cells. Cell discernment is Data from Picture’s biggest weakness and the Review process makes it hard to fix those problems. For example, text using Excel’s own Accounting format which puts […]
Dictate voice commands in Office – the full, searchable list
Here’s the full and searchable list of Word 365 Dictation special phrases, in English. Saying any of these phrases converts the words spoken into the symbol or does a Word command. For example, say “Full Stop” and . appears in the document. Say “Dollar sign” and get $ . Say ‘Align Center’ and the current […]
Simple start with Microsoft 365 and PowerShell
How to run administration commands via PowerShell for Microsoft 365 hosting and especially Microsoft 365 Exchange Server or mailbox hosting. Microsoft 365 customers will often see instructions like this to configure their Exchange Server mailboxes using PowerShell. Set-OrganizationConfig -AllowPlusAddressInRecipients $true Looks simple, but that command alone won’t work in PowerShell because there are add-ins to […]
Quick Excel list sorting and filter buttons
Any Excel worksheet that has lists with headings on the top row can quickly get pull-down menus to filter or sort the data. For a regular Excel worksheet, go to the Data tab and click the Filter button. This adds extra pull-down menus to each of the headings. For an Excel Table, the filter buttons […]
Use Pantone Colors in Office documents
You can translate a Pantone PMS code or name into something Microsoft Office; Word, Excel or PowerPoint understands? Sometimes you’re given a specific color using the Pantone color scheme. Most commonly this happens for a corporate logo. The Ford car company specifies ‘PMS 294C’ for their blue logo. McDonald’s uses PMS 123C and PMS 485C […]
Inside the Schengen Visa Calculation workbook
Here’s a quick look at some of the modest Excel tricks we used to make the Schengen Visa Calculation worksheet. Table Making the itinerary list an Excel Table lets us make use of some features. Formatting It’s a lot easier to format as a table with banded rows. We’ve turned off the Table | Filter […]
Microsoft Word is beaten (again) by a 14 year-old spelling champ
Our annual Microsoft Word vs the Spelling Bee Champions contest is on again for 2022. Word has done better than in the past but was still beaten by another extraordinary 14 year-old. 2022’s Spelling Bee Champ is Harini Logan, 14, from San Antonio TX who narrowly beat Vikram Raju a mere 12-year-old from Denver, CO. […]
Text to Excel Date conversion by adding Zero with Paste Special
Another way to convert text to dates is by adding zero to the text. This is a trick which forces Excel to convert the text into an Excel value so it can then add the zero. Since adding zero doesn’t change the value, you end up with text converted to an Excel value. It’s a […]
Excel Conditional Formatting, beyond the presets
Excel has some nifty and simple options for color highlights the extremes in a list of values. It’s called Conditional Formatting and you can do all sorts of clever things with it. First let’s look at the simple presets that Microsoft has given us, some of the obvious choices they’ve left out and how to […]
IF and Nested IF Statements in Excel
An IF statement might sound like a complicated thing that programmers do, but it’s actually fairly easy to do in Excel. An IF statement basically puts something into a cell depending on certain conditions – if A is true, put X in this cell. You can even use what’s called a nested IF statement if you have […]
Otter 🦦 emoji in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Type the fun Otter 🦦 emoji into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Otter 🦦 emoji represents a light-brown otter (a member of the weasel family) on its back with its paws held together. But the emoji can just be used for a bit of fun. […]
First look at the new Microsoft Outlook – New Outlook
A first look at the new “New Outlook” which Microsoft (deliberately?) leaked ahead of an official announcement. It’s interesting but with one major and very disappointing omission. This article has been updated now “New Outlook” (as it’s now called) has been released to Office 365 Insider users. As you can see, it looks like the […]
Two ways to open a OneDrive document in Microsoft Office
There are two different ways to access a Microsoft Office document that’s saved on OneDrive. We’ll explain both and why it’s sometimes important. Microsoft’s OneDrive stores documents on servers. Programs (like Office) can open those files directly from the cloud service. Or the OneDrive app can copy (synchronize) files from the cloud to your “local” […]
Duck 🦆 emoji in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Add the Duck 🦆 emoji into Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Duck 🦆 emoji represents the quacky bird with webbed feet. The emoji is usually depicted as a Mallard. Sometimes used as a substitute for the f-word, because of iPhone’s tendency to autocorrect to the obvious […]
What can you put in your email address?
A simple question – what characters can you put in an email address? Like many things to do with the Internet the answer isn’t as simple or direct as you might think. We’ll look at what makes a valid email address, both in theory and in practice. A simple question – what characters can you […]
Real words for really big numbers in Microsoft Word
What are the real words for really big numbers, waaay over a trillion? Does Microsoft Word’s dictionary recognize them? (Answer: most but not all and there’s even a spelling mistake in Word!). How many is a billion anyway? We’ve looked at the informal words for vague large numbers such as zillion, gazillion etc. There are […]
