All about Microsoft Office for Apple Mac. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook on macOS, Microsoft 365 for Mac, Office 2021 for Mac and earlier versions.
Show Crop Marks each page in Word
How to show the four corner Crop or Trim marks on a Microsoft Word page. The ‘L’ shapes are a guide to the useable part of the page, inside the margins, and appear in all four corners. The four marks are called Crop Marks also known as Trim Marks. Word Crop Marks in Page View, […]
How Word warns you (or not) about rude, offensive words
Microsoft Word has a ‘profanity’ check to warn you about rude, offensive or swear words in some places. In others, the same word won’t get any special marking. We’ll explain how to setup and use Microsoft Word’s Profanity check then show its limitations and traps. The Profanity, offensive or swear word test is in Microsoft […]
Add a link to a PDF or other file into a Word document
Inserting a link to a PDF (or any other file) into a Word document or email is easy to do. All you need is the web or other link to the PDF and paste that link into your document or email. The key question to ask is ‘Where is the PDF located or saved to?’. […]
Table of Equations in Word made simple
If you have included equations in a document, Word can generate a list of them all for you. Like a table of contents, this list or Table of Equations can include page references or links to each equation. A Table of Equations can be useful for creating a proper appendix or reference within more formal […]
Four ways to split date into day month year in Excel
If you’ve ever needed to split dates in Excel into separate day, month, and year, there are several options to choose from. Excel has different functions, Text to Columns or Flash Fill which can do the job. Here’s a quick guide on several methods: Using the DAY, MONTH and YEAR functions Using Text to Columns […]
Make your Twitter ‘message’ in Word or Powerpoint
With a little Office formatting trickery, you can make a Twitter ‘message’ that looks like what you see on the Twitter web site or app to put in a Word document or PowerPoint slide. Use this trick to recreate a real Tweet that’s part of a document. Or as a fake or joke tweet as […]
Why does Word pronounce GIF two different ways?
There are disagreements about how to pronounce the acronym ‘GIF’ for the popular image format, even though there’s an authoritative answer. Even Microsoft Word is confused about how to say GIF with the Read Aloud feature. Stephen E. Wilhite, the developer of the Graphics Interchange Format or GIF passed away earlier this month. Obituary . […]
Add a background image to a page in Word
Add a background image to any page in a Word document instead of a solid color or pattern. Using a picture as the background for Word page isn’t as straight forward because the official or approved method doesn’t work very well. We’ll show you other Word features that work better (or at all). Most of […]
Eye of Horus 𓂀 symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook
Insert the Eye of Horus 𓂀 into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Eye of Horus 𓂀 is an Egyptian Hieroglyph symbolizing protection. According to Egyptian myth, Horus lost his left eye during his struggle with Seth, and it was restored by Hathor, symbolizing the process […]
Find and cite with Researcher in Word
The Researcher button on Word’s References tab lets you lookup information online and copy into a document with formatted but optional citation. It’s likely to dismay many teachers and lecturers. Researcher is a cloud service, only available in Word 365 for Windows and Mac. The Researcher pane is really a specialized Bing web search that […]
Avoid embarrassing typing mistakes in Word
A slip of the typing fingers can be funny, insulting or embarrassing, turning an innocent word into a naughty one. There are features in Word to help avoid these mistakes which have improved over the years but they aren’t 100% reliable It only takes a single letter to turn an innocent remark into something quite […]
Google Sheets gets 10 million cells, not enough to beat Excel
Google has just doubled the cells available in their Sheets spreadsheet, taking it to 10 million cells. Still well short of Excel’s 17 million cells. Sheets can now stretch to 18,278 columns (column ZZZ) for all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers. Excel has 17 million cells Since Excel […]
Word Bug: Headings Inside Tables Go Missing
A long-standing bug in Microsoft Word quietly breaks your document navigation when you place Heading styles inside a table. The Table of Contents shows all your headings correctly, but the Navigation Pane silently drops any heading that lives inside a table cell. The same broken behavior ripples into PDF Bookmarks and the Insert Link dialog. […]
2001 A Space Odyssey – in Word and PowerPoint
As long time space and SF nerds, Office Watch can’t resist putting the look of 2001: A Space Odyssey into Word documents and PowerPoint slides. We’ll show you how to make a ‘close match’ using just the fonts and features in Microsoft Office. We’ll also explain the details behind that choice and some alternatives, both […]
Better ways to add date lists in Excel
Excel has ways to add a list of dates by day, weekday, month or year either by the fill handle or the Series command. Date Series with Fill Handle You probably know about the Fill handle tool to fill the remaining cells. Once highlighted, just hover your mouse in the bottom right corner and a […]
Fancy gridlines to make Excel look great or at least different.
Gridlines are on every spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel workbooks. Did you know those grey lines can be colored to make them fancy, more obvious or more discreet? Let’s look at two ways you can make colored gridlines in Excel. Here’s what it looks like with the pink, black and red in comparison to the default […]
