All about Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and earlier versions.
You’d better hurry if you want discounted Office 2019 for $15
The current Home Use Program with Office 2019 sold for a mere $15 is about to end. If you want the perpetual licence Office 2019 for Windows or Mac, you’d better hurry. The full impact of the changed Office Home Use Program (HUP) is becoming clear. We’ve already noted that Office 365 subscriptions are becoming […]
Office Twins Challenge is a shameless, annoying crock
Even by Microsoft’s standards, The Office Twins Challenge is a self-serving and annoying crock which treats customers like fools. Office 2019 ad to discourage buying it It’s not often (ever?) that a company doesn’t want to sell a product, but that’s what Microsoft is doing with their latest Microsoft Office ad. Office 2019 is the […]
Cheaper Office 365 for many with Home Use Program
The Microsoft Office Home Use Program (HUP) has officially been extended to include Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal annual plans. Naturally there’s a catch, the rules have changed but the Microsoft department isn’t ready yet! UPDATES: Home Use Program details are dribbling out. You’d better hurry if you want discounted Office 2019 for […]
New 2019 Emoji in Word and Outlook
Many new emoji are now in the official Unicode list but we’ll have to wait for them to appear in Word or Outlook emails. After the Unicode Consortium ratifies additions to the vast character list, it takes some time for Microsoft, Apple and others to add the emoji to their fonts. The 2019 Emoji list […]
New Office 365 Save option ain’t so bad
Office 365 is getting yet another way to save a document and it’s not as bad as the advance publicity suggested. We’ve now had a chance to use the new Save dialog ourselves and it’s not another attempt to force customers to OneDrive. The change is now available for Office Fast Insiders and eventually all […]
Wiping drives or shredding files in Windows
Here’s a quick and easy way to totally erase file, folders or free disk space so there’s no trace of the original data. Also erasing an entire drive before handing over or selling. As you may know, deleting a file doesn’t really remove it from your computer. Even after deleting from the Recycle Bin, the […]
Have a happy Year of the Pig emoji in Word and Office
It’s the Chinese Year of the Pig and there are some symbols in Word, Excel and PowerPoint to mark the occasion in Office for Windows or Mac. The Unicode standard has three Pig related emoji, Pig, Pig Face and Pig Nose. Once you know the names or hex value, they can be found with the […]
Webmail is bad, use Outlook software instead
Web based email is very common these days but it’s not the best way to handle your email. At worse, webmail can leave you stranded and out-of-touch. A lot of people now use webmail as the only way to access email on their computer, not realising, until it’s too late, that there’s a better way. […]
Email with webmail or software – what’s the difference?
How can you tell if you’re reading email in a web browser or using email software like Outlook for Windows or Mac? This might seem obvious to some but many people use ’email’ without understanding the important difference between webmail and email programs. There are two ways to read and send emails: use software/apps like […]
Google Translate with Office documents
If the Translation options in Microsoft Office don’t do it for you, try the Google Translate full document translation option instead. For a long time, Google has a word and text translation between languages. The app is a godsend to travelers around the world, and the locals dealing with them! Entire Office documents can also […]
Windows computers can’t ‘see’ each other on a local network – possible fix
What can you do when two Windows computers can’t ‘see’ each other for file sharing on a local network? It’s an old, old Windows problem with too many possible faults, but a smart Office Watch reader found one possible fix. File sharing is necessary to let you share documents and files between local computers. Microsoft […]
Windows 10 Mobile is dying … what’s next?
Windows 10 Mobile will end support in December 2019, the latest in a long line of failed attempts by Microsoft to produce a smartphone version of Windows. Smartphones with Windows 10 will continue to work, of course. So will the Office apps for Win 10 Mobile. But there’ll be no more security patches, features or […]
Which Office 365/2019 to choose – 64 bit or 32-bit?
Now that Microsoft is changing the default Office 365 and Office 2019 install to 64-bit software from 32-bit software – which one do you choose and does it matter? Most people will not notice the difference between 32-bit Office and the 64-bit version. The latter is faster but not so much better that you’d realize […]
Cheap Visio or Project, if you dare
Microsoft Project and Visio are expensive extras to Microsoft Office so it’s tempting to buy cheap versions from sites like Ebay but there are traps for the unwary. Visio software plans start at $15 a month up to a one-time price of $530 for Visio Professional. Visio Online only can be had for $5 a […]
Bogus cheap Office 365 ads on Facebook
Ads for cheap, illegal or maybe non-existent versions of Office 365 appear all over the place, including Facebook. Just like similar offers on Ebay or Amazon they look great but can’t possibly be legitimate. This one on Facebook mobile offers ‘Lifetime’ Office 365 for just $75. Since a single year of Office 365 Home costs […]
Office memory leak finally patched by Microsoft
An astonishingly simple security breach in Microsoft Office has finally been patched two months after Microsoft confirmed the problem. The unanswered question, why did it take so long to discover it? Mimecast.com discovered the ActiveX memory leak back in November 2018 and told Microsoft. Two months later Microsoft fixed the problem in their January 2019 […]
