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 Tyranny and History of Spreadsheets over 700 years
Tim Harford has an interesting long read on spreadsheets from its origins in the late 14th Century Italy to modern Excel with diversions into smallpox, Enron, Covid and even teasing Bill Gates. The Tyranny of Spreadsheets is on the Financial Times web site. It’s usually firewalled but the link should, hopefully, show the article. Harford […]
Make a self-running or kiosk display in PowerPoint
PowerPoint can show slides on a screen as a high-tech signboard, using a self-running presentation known as Kiosk display. Here’s how to do it plus all the settings and tricks available. We’ve all seen screens displaying information on a series of slides – maybe in a shop or conference. Maybe as a prelude or postscript […]
Pride and Mental Health extras in Office 365
Microsoft has added more stock images to Office 365 apps to help people celebrate Mental Health month (May). Also some extra app themes and pictures for Pride Month (June). Mental Health images May was Mental Health Awareness Month so Microsoft added some appropriate Stock Images for documents and slides. They are still available for Microsoft […]
Secrets to syncing Teams files with your computer
A little known but useful Teams feature is synchronizing Teams files folders to your Windows or Mac computer. Files are available quickly, more easily and offline via Explorer or Finder. But there’s a trick to getting it working. The official way to access documents and files in Teams is via the Files tab in any […]
Coming attractions in Teams, Whiteboard and Fluid components
Microsoft has announced their plans for later this year with additions to Teams, Whiteboard and an expansion of their Fluid components concept. None of these things are available now. It’s all future promises, nothing substantial customers can use today. Let’s strip away all the hype about ‘hybrid’ workplaces that are ‘work focused’ (what other focus […]
How to add many OneDrive accounts to a single device
OneDrive has quietly boosted one of its most important features, the ability to synchronize more than one account on the same computer or portable device. Here’s how for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android. It’s possible to sync almost all the OneDrive accounts you have access to. A personal OneDrive account plus many work/school accounts. […]
How to type the Ghana Cedi symbol
How to type Ghana Cedi currency character in Windows or Office, especially Word. After our article about inserting Numero and other symbols into Office – trust an Office Watch reader to find a character not available in a supplied Windows / Office font: ” The currency in Ghana is the Cedi. The symbol used is […]
Practical options for Footnotes to Word tables
Microsoft Word has footnotes and endnotes features but it’s surprisingly clumsy when it come to the common need for footnotes immediately after a table. Normally, Word puts Footnotes at the bottom of the page but for tables (and occasionally pictures or diagrams) you want them immediately after the table like this: Doing that is possible […]
How to stop auto updating Office for Mac
Here’s how to stop Microsoft Office for Mac from automatically updating itself and why you might want to do refresh the Office apps. Office 2019 / 2016 for Mac All versions of Office for Mac that have current support (currently Office 2016 and later) get: updates to fix bugs in the software patches to stop […]
Beware, your location can affect Map Charts in Excel
Microsoft changes what’s displayed in Excel Map Charts depending on your location and Microsoft’s policies in certain countries like China. We’ve had reports from people in China and Hong Kong that they can’t ‘see’ Taiwan on their Excel Map Charts. In most of the world, China and Taiwan show up as separate areas. Microsoft, like […]
Microsoft 365 discounts are rare but you can still save
Paying less for Microsoft 365 Family or Personal isn’t easy these days. Why is that and what discount options are still available? There was a time, not so long ago, when getting a discounted price for a Microsoft 365 consumer plan wasn’t hard. All the major retailers sold Microsoft 365 Family (formerly Home) usually cheaper […]
Typing Numero and other symbols in Office
How to type the ‘Numero’ symbol and other special characters – there’s many ways to do it in Word and Office. It all started with a single, seemingly simple, question from a reader. As often happens, the question opens up a whole range of options in Office Entering the Numero sign “How can I enter the […]
Useful shared calendar improvements in Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is in the final stages of a major improvement in the ‘plumbing’ behind synchronizing calendars across an organization. Leaving aside a particularly outrageous Redmond boast, the changes are welcome enhancements. Outlook and Exchange Server can have difficulties coping with fast changing appointment and meeting arrangements. When several people are editing a shared event […]
Using Review mode in OneDrive, Sharepoint and Word
Review mode is a very useful sharing choice in OneDrive and Sharepoint for Microsoft Word documents only. It lets people look over and comment on a Word document without changing the text. Only Microsoft 365 Enterprise or Education customers can get Review Mode. Look for it at the bottom of the shared Link Settings. What […]
Block download option for Microsoft 365 sharing
The Block Download option is worth considering when sharing an Office document, audio file or PDF that you’d like to limit distribution in OneDrive or SharePoint. Block Download is only available for Microsoft 365 Enterprise or Education customers. Look for it at the bottom of the shared Link Settings. What does Block Download do? The […]
Sharing changes coming to OneDrive and Office 365
The options for sharing documents and files will be changing over the next twelve months for the Office 365 apps, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive. Year of Sharing The whole suite of changes is what Microsoft is grandly calling the ‘Year of Sharing’. That’s overstating things because there’s little or no feature changes in what’s been […]
