All about Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and earlier versions.
Is there really less use of Office software?
Or survey gives results that suit those paying for the survey.It’s an old PR trick, put together some report or survey that will get lots of free publicity for the company that’s footing the bill. It’s easy copy for overworked journos so you can’t blame them for using them. Microsoft has done it themselves. In […]
Office Online in Google Chrome
A smart move by Microsoft, but not a big deal. A clever move from Microsoft today, having their Office Online web sites added to the Google Chrome App Store. That’s led to excited headlines like “Microsoft Office hits Google’s Chrome Web Store” which will please Microsoft. Sure, you can now go to the Chrome App […]
Windows 8.1 Update – secret changes list?
Microsoft is keeping ‘good’ secrets from customers – why? There’s a few blog posts about the Windows 8.1 Update changes … but not all the changes. For reasons passing understanding, Microsoft won’t release a full list of the Windows 8.1 Update changes The Windows 8.1 Update is a curious beast. It is basically a set […]
Get your Word for Windows source code
Microsoft’s gift to history Microsoft has released to the public domain the source code and documents for an early version of Word, Word 1.1a for Windows, as well as DOS 1.1 and 2.0. The Word for Windows has both C source code and some documentation. The documents are in original format which means that Word […]
Windows Phone 8.1 out now
What’s in Windows Phone 8.1? Windows Phone 8.1 is now being pushed out to compatible Windows Phones. Some changes of interest to Office users. Password protected documents are now supported in the Office apps – at last. S/MIME is available to secure and identify emails – again long overdue. Calendar now has a Week view […]
Office for iPhone and Android now free for home use
Non-business users can edit Office documents on their iPhone or Android phone for free. On the same day as Office for iPad was released, Office Mobile for iPhone and Android was also updated. The usual unstated bug fixes but the major news is that Office Mobile for iPhone and Office Mobile for Android were made available […]
Sharing a document – email vs OneDrive?
Which way is best? Share a document by email or cloud? There are two main ways to share a document that needs editing or proofreading. Send it via email and get a revised document back or post to a cloud service like OneDrive, Dropbox or SharePoint. But which is best? In this article we’ll look […]
Microsoft can read your Office documents, legally
If Microsoft can read Outlook.com email, they can read your Office documents too. The news that Microsoft read the email of a Hotmail/Outlook.com user without his knowledge raises the question of access to OneDrive data Microsoft Office and Windows 8 encourage people to save documents and pictures to Microsoft’s OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) service. Some Office […]
Microsoft reads private email on Hotmail/Outlook.com
When Microsoft feels the need, they read cloud emails on Outlook.com (aka Hotmail) or other Microsoft 365 hosted email. Microsoft has been caught reading private data stored on their cloud servers and it’s all quite legal. In 2012 screenshots of the, then unreleased, Windows 8 had been leaked and Microsoft wanted to know where the […]
Office for iPad – next week?
Does it matter if there’s an Office for iPad? Only if it’s a decent app that works properly. Microsoft is quietly delighted with all the coverage for a product they haven’t even admitted exists – Office for iPad. First there were stories about ‘internal divisions’ about whether to release Office for iPad and now news […]
Microsoft Office – what’s the latest update?
A list of Microsoft Office versions and their latest Service Packs. If you don’t have Office 2013, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Here’s a list of the latest service packs for each version of Microsoft Office going back more than a decade. For the recent versions of Office, at least Office 2007 and later, you […]
Office for iPad and beyond
Don’t get excited about an ‘Office for iPad’ until we see it. The online commentariat was alight with news about the coming Office for iPad. Not much news really, just a rumor that Office for iPad was still ‘coming’ and probably before a version of Office for Windows 8 touch screens. We’ll wait to see […]
A better ‘Recent Places’ folder
Making Windows Explorer’s Recent Places feature a whole lot better. Recent Places shows the folders you can recently visited in Windows Explorer. By default it’s in the Favorites section. Unfortunately the standard Recent Places view isn’t a lot of help: The Type and Size columns are irrelevant because they will always be ‘Shortcut’ and a […]
Office 365 two factor authentication
Better login security for some Office 365 users. Microsoft has expanded two factor authentication to more Office 365 users. Called ‘multi-factor authentication’ is now available for Office 365 Midsize Business, Enterprise plans, Academic plans, Nonprofit plans, and standalone Office 365 plans, including Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. There’s no extra charge and the additional login […]
Skydrive/OneDrive Camera Roll / Camera Backup
Upload photos automatically from smartphones. One of the features of Skydrive/OneDrive is the ‘Camera Roll’ or ‘Camera Backup’, it’s a simple and automatic way to copy photos between some devices. Is it ‘Camera Roll’ or ‘Camera Backup’? Microsoft uses both terms, depending on where you look. Most commonly from your smartphone (Apple or Windows) to […]
SkyDrive/OneDrive file recovery
How to recover deleted files in OneDrive. Skydrive/OneDrive retains deleted files for 30 days or until the Recycle Bin exceeds 10% of your allowed storage space. This feature works much the same way as the Recycle Bin in Windows and it’s called ‘Recycle Bin’ down on the bottom left of the web page. Select a […]
