All about Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and earlier versions.
The problem with Windows 8
Win 8 ‘not fit for purpose’?Today’s Financial Times has an interesting letter and sharp indictment of Windows 8 “….For anybody doing real work, Windows 8 has concrete design errors which should never have reached the business user. Leaving aside trying to work with spreadsheets, the start button, the right click or even finding basic functions […]
CloudOn brings Office to your browser
Another way to have real Microsoft Office. Cloudon, makers of an app to bring MS Office to Apple and Android devices has now expanded to browsers as well. Now you can use Chrome or Safari browsers to open up a Cloudon window with Word, Excel or Powerpoint running. The base product is free with a […]
Free iWork apps for iPad and iPhone
Apple’s office compatible apps are now free. Buried in the new iPhone hype was some interesting news for anyone editing Office documents on iPhone or iPad. The ‘iWork’ apps are now free on new devices. That’s Pages (word-processing), Keynote (presentations) and Numbers (spreadsheet). Each app cost $9.99 in the past and still does for existing […]
Alternatives to font embedding
What can Office for Mac users do instead of font embedding? Since Office for Mac won’t let you embed fonts, what can you do instead? We’ll look at the options that Office for Mac users can try when sharing a document with Office for Windows. Going the other way (Office for Windows to Mac) isn’t […]
Office for Mac’s dirty little secret
Microsoft makes Office for Mac compatibility harder by omitting an important feature. In the feature list of Office for Mac is one vital omission, one that Microsoft definitely doesn’t like talking about. It effects anyone trying to operate in a ‘mixed’ Office Windows/Mac environment. In theory, a document made on Office for Macintosh can be […]
New names for Skydrive
Some reader suggestions for a renamed Skydrive. With the news that Microsoft’s Skydrive service will be renamed, came some suggestions from readers. Microsoft Cloud Storage 2013 Home and Student edition Office 365 Drive Bob Drive – time to give the ill-fated Microsoft Bob a new job. Universal Microsoft hasn’t used “Ultimate” in a while, so […]
Skydrive to be renamed
Microsoft loses a court battle – Skydrive is no more. Microsoft has lost a court case regarding use of the term ‘Sky’ and is being forced to rename their ‘Skydrive’ cloud storage service to something else. While the case was held in the UK and only covered use of the name in the European Union, […]
Office for Android
Office apps, of a sort, come to Android phones. Hot on the heels of Office for iPhone comes Microsoft’s version of Office for Android phones. The Android release is very similar to Office for iPhone, which effectively means both are quite limited in features and availability. Office for Android (officially called “Office Mobile for Office […]
Bug? What Bug?
How Microsoft keeps bugs secret until it suits them. For as long as we can remember, an Office Service Pack has been accompanied by the revelation of previous undisclosed bugs in the software. Microsoft has an ongoing policy of keeping bugs secret from customers until they have a fix. Here’s how it works. Through support […]
Microsoft’s unanswered privacy questions
After last week’s revelations about Microsoft’s cooperation with the US government, we asked some questions …. Still waiting for a reply of any kind. After last week’s revelations about Microsoft’s cooperation with the US government, we asked some questions to Microsoft. They asked for more time to reply, so we extended the deadline to over […]
Microsoft’s latest reorganization – what it means for Office
Does the latest shuffling of chairs at Redmond make any difference to Office users? Microsoft has announced their latest corporate reorganization which has been analyzed to death in the press. You can read the email to Microsoft staff here – and catch up on the latest in corporate buzzwords and platitudes at the same time. […]
Microsoft and the NSA … Microsoft’s response
Microsoft’s official response to the latest news about their work with the NSA and FBI. Office-Watch.com has posed a series of specific questions to Microsoft which we hope will get a response in the next few days. In the meantime here’s their official response to the Guardian article about Microsoft’s collaboration with the NSA and […]
Microsoft and the NSA … a ‘team’ to get more information from us
New disclosures about how Microsoft actively collaborates with the NSA to infiltrate Skydrive and encrypted messages on a large scale. The Guardian newspaper today has damaging revelations about how Microsoft had gone beyond simply responding to specific requests from the US government for information on individuals using Outlook.com, Skydrive and other cloud services. According to Microsoft, […]
Why Office for iPhone will never be any good
Microsoft doesn’t want Office for iPhone to be good or popular. We’ve received a lot of emails from people disappointed with Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone. Disappointed that it’s so limited in features and options for saving documents. Disappointed that the new app requires an Office software rental to use at all. Buying the latest […]
Office for iPhone – not for all subscribers
‘All’ has a different meaning at Redmond. Microsoft plays word games with Office 365 and iPhone Microsoft could be clear about entitlement to Office Mobile for iPhone. Instead they play word games including re-defining the word ‘All’ to mean something less than the dictionary definition; All: “used to refer to the whole quantity or extent of […]
Who can really get Office Mobile for iPhone
Not all Office 365 subscribers can get Office Mobile for iPhone and there’s a hidden limit. From the public statements you’d think that all Office 365 subscribers can use Office Mobile for iPhone but that’s not so. Only Office 365 subscriptions that include Office software rental can also install Office Mobile apps with a limit […]
