All about Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and earlier versions.
Remote Desktop alternatives
If you can’t use Windows Remote Desktop there are other choices.Remote Desktop works well for compatible Windows computers on the same local network. Beyond that there are other choices, they usually don’t work as well as Remote Desktop but are still good. Live Mesh If you want to reach a desktop computer from outside your […]
Putting SuperPAC’s into Excel
How to get detailed SuperPAC donation and spending information into Excel. Today the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) is receiving and publishing details of the controversial SuperPAC’s showing who has donated and what they spent money on. It’s a good and timely example of how you can get information from the web and turn it […]
Office 15 starts external testing
The Office 15 Technical Preview has begun. And so it begins …. Microsoft has started testing the next version of Office (called ‘Office 15’ for the moment) to a small group of people outside the company. They aren’t saying much else at this stage except the usual platitudes that have accompanied a new version of […]
Kindle Fire and DOC files don’t work
Despite Amazon promises, Word DOC files aren’t read directly by the Kindle Fire. Amazon has been a little shifty when it comes to mentioning document compatibility for the Kindle and especially Kindle Fire. The official list includes two file types that DON’T work and omits an important file type that definitely DOES work. Amazon blurs […]
Get folder / file list into Word or Excel
How to get a list of files in a folder into Microsoft Word. As long as there have been word processors, we’ve seen the question of how to get a list of files into a document. It should be simple bit it isn’t. Here’s how … You could write or get a Word macro to […]
Language support in Microsoft Office
How can you get more languages for Office – or maybe you already have them? Following our look at Which languages come with Office in the last issue we received quite a few questions from Office Watch readers about language support in Office; this and related articles will attempt to answer them and, hopefully, save […]
Adding a language to Microsoft Office
For Office 2010 you can buy additional language packs, if necessary. Often they are available for free. For Office 2010 you can buy additional language packs, if necessary. Often they are available for free. We say if necessary because you might not need to buy anything. Office 2010 is sold with more than one dictionary […]
Which languages in your copy of Office?
When you buy Microsoft Office, what language proofing tools do you get ‘in the box’? Each language version of Office sold is called a ‘localized version’ by Microsoft. The most common is the ‘English’ version of Office sold in North America, UK, Australia, New Zealand and many other places. Though, as we’ll see, even this […]
Office 2010 language packs
The details (and lack of) about add-on languages for Office 2010. You can buy additional languages (proofing and interface) for Office 2010, however details are sadly lacking. Getting Office language packs was once a tiresome and difficult process. The packs were sold, at high prices, by a third-party company. They were hard to find, order […]
Office for iPad?
Why would Microsoft make Office for iPad? It’s being reported that Microsoft is working on an iPad version of Microsoft Office – This is hardly surprising, the iPad’s have become a very popular platform. By contrast, Windows Tablets have hardly taken the world by storm. For all the chest-thumping from Redmond about Windows 8 on […]
Get replacement product key from Microsoft
There is a possibility of getting a replacement Product Key from Microsoft. A Knowledge Base article from Microsoft suggests they can help recover a lost Office Product Key. If you’re trying to install Microsoft Office, perhaps on a replacement computer, you need installation disk and also the Product Key. That’s the unique 25 character code […]
Recovering Office Product Key from OEM installations
Why can’t you get the right key from a pre-installed copy of Office? Buying a pre-installed copy of Microsoft Office has some pitfalls and one of them is trouble recovering the Product Key. If you’ve lost your copy of the Office Product Key (essential for installing Office) then usually you can get the Key from […]
Changing languages that come with Office
When you buy Office there are several languages you can use with your documents. Office has two levels of language support. There’s the language used on the menus, ribbon and dialog (called ‘Language Interface’) and then there are the languages supported in documents by the spell checker, grammar analysis and thesaurus. In this article we’ll […]
Duqu .doc advice
What to do about the ‘Duqu’ malware that can be sent via Word documents. There’s plenty of noise but little hard facts so far about the Duqu malware attack. At the time of writing all we know is: There’s a new Windows exploit that the ‘Duqu’ malware uses to take control of a computer. […]
iCloud and Microsoft Office
How to use Apple’s iCloud with your Office documents. iCloud is the new Apple service which lets you easily synchronize files between IPad / iPhone and desktop computers, here’s how it works. Did we say ‘easily’? More correct to say ‘a bit easier’. iCloud is a slightly better way to get documents between a desktop […]
Stephen Fry and Comic Sans
The Comic Sans haters have risen again as a TV show is plastered with the hated Comic Sans font Stephen Fry’s latest TV show uses Comic Sans as its primary font, so the haters of the common font have risen in protest. We’ve talked about Comic Sans before. It’s not a bad font; in fact […]
