All about Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and earlier versions.
Better Than Comic Sans: Upgrade Your Fonts for a Stronger Impression
Tired of Comic Sans but still want a casual, friendly font? Microsoft Office has better built-in alternatives or there’s many other fonts that keeps the charm without the cringe. Here’s a quick guide to upgrading your documents. The Wall Street Journal has a history of Comic Sans, the font that people love to hate, complete […]
Score with Solid and Hollow Emoji in Excel
Display scores or ratings visually in Excel using solid and hollow emojis or symbols, you can use a combination of simple formulas and conditional formatting. This approach is useful for representing ratings, progress, or performance in an intuitive and engaging way. With a little Excel trickery, you can show multi-colored symbols with alternates for the […]
Copilot Word 365 Document summary gets better, for some
Microsoft 365 Copilot is improving their document summary feature in Word across Windows, Mac, and the web for some customers. Still no mention of the feature that Word Copilot users really want! Copilot Summary appears at the top of Word documents, whether you like it or not. It can be a useful way to get […]
Convert Office docs to text with Markitdown
Check out this clever Python tool that converts Word documents, Excel sheets, PowerPoint decks and PDFs into a plain text format. Markitdown is a Python library released by Microsoft via Github, converts many documents into nearly plain text (called MarkDown). It’ll convert all these formats into text. Some conversions need extra pip flags like ([pdf], […]
Get the new color, Olo, in Microsoft Office
There’s a special new color called ‘Olo’ developed by scientists in Berkely, California. The nearest match to Olo is possible in Microsoft Office, including Word and PowerPoint. Olo can only be seen with help from a special laser that fires the color into the eye. It’s claimed to extend human color perception into more saturated […]
Add new PowerPoint slide with Copilot
PowerPoint is getting a useful addition to its Copilot AI options, make a new slide with Copilot. The Home tab of PowerPoint 365 will have ‘New Slide with Copilot’. A Copilot enabled Microsoft 365 plan is necessary, obviously. Or there’s “Add a slide” on the Copilot icon top-left of a slide. This is a welcome […]
More emoji and more choices from the Fluent Emoji Gallery
Get the most from Microsoft’s Emoji collection with a wonderful app, the Fluent Emoji Gallery with many options and puts Microsoft’s own emoji efforts to shame. Microsoft’s Fluent Emoji collection are a great collection of 3D looking icons but they are a bear to find and use. Michał Łeptuch’s Fluent Emoji Gallery (FEG) lets you […]
Get Office Startup Boost for any Office app and any version
The Startup Boost feature coming to Word 365 is really a sly trick by Microsoft. It’s a trick that anyone can do with any Office app and any version of Office. Startup Boost starts the app but hides it away. Word lurks in the background until the user clicks on a Word icon (or starts […]
Make Word start faster with Office Startup Boost
Startup Boost is a new way to make Microsoft Word 365 start faster. Here’s how it works and how to disable it. Startup Boost is a little tech trickery. Word 365 isn’t really getting faster, instead it’s being started in the background (aka preload) where it’ll lurk until needed. In other words, Word is being […]
Fix F9 Fn Keys don’t work in Word, Office or Windows
Office Watch reader Steve G is having a problem in Word. The F9 key isn’t updating fields in a Word document. He suspects a buggy patch of Windows or Office. Here’s how to find the source of the Function key or any keypress problem and fix it. Hint – it’s probably not a bug or […]
Microsoft breaks 365 Family licenses
Last Thursday wasn’t great for Microsoft 365 Family customers who were kicked out of their legitimate Office apps because of a bug in Microsoft licensing servers. We’ll explain when happened over nine hours and what you can do if it happens again. It’s become an all too familiar story. A Microsoft update of their cloud […]
Microsoft cloud services move to a new domain for a good reason
Microsoft has moved cloud services to a special domain .cloud.microsoft which is a good thing that gives us all a little more confidence in their online services. Microsoft’s services are a dreadful jumble of domains, mostly .com but also some .net. And there’s no consistency with Sharepoint and ClipChamp having its own .com (sharepoint.com clipchamp.com) […]
Microsoft Pushes Out Emergency fix to Stop Office 2016 Crashes
If your Microsoft Office 2016 apps suddenly started crashing last week, you’re not alone. Fortunately, Microsoft has rolled out an emergency fix to help users get back on track after one of their security update caused Outlook and other Office 2016 apps to stop working. The troubles started began after a recent Patch Tuesday update […]
Microsoft lies to hide their ‘theft’ of Skype Credit
Microsoft is restoring to lies and obfuscation to hide their decision to take unused Skype Credit money rather than give refunds or credits. Microsoft is trying to trick customers by saying that their Teams product replaces Skype – which is simply not true. Skype has two major features, only one is replaced by Teams: Microsoft’s […]
Adding a message to a PowerPoint ‘envelope’
Here’s how to make a message (letter or card) to make it ‘appear’ from a PowerPoint envelope graphic. This message can be personal or professional, depending on your preference. In Make your own Envelope graphic for PowerPoint we showed how to make an ‘open envelope’ graphic in PowerPoint with some clever use of the Office […]
Make your own Envelope graphic for PowerPoint
An envelope graphic—crafted entirely in PowerPoint! It’s a versatile design element that works for both personal and professional needs. Whether you’re communicating with customers, making special announcements, or enhancing presentations with a creative touch, an envelope icon is a powerful visual asset. It can also be used effectively to showcase images in business presentations. We’ll […]
