All about Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and earlier versions.
Upload a phone image to Copilot chat
Microsoft has introduced a new feature allowing users to upload images directly from their mobile devices to Microsoft 365 Copilot. A nice trick but there are other ways to do the same thing, including two from Microsoft itself! The idea is to streamline tasks such as transcribing handwritten notes, summarizing charts, and digitizing receipts. Copilot […]
Excel Value Tokens – what are they good for?
Excel is getting Value Tokens but what are they good for? Do they add any ‘value’ or are they just a ‘token’ extra? The ‘Value Token’ appears in the formula bar when you select a data linked cell e.g. Stocks, Currencies, Geography or custom data types. According to Microsoft “This enhancement provides a clear visual […]
Does Microsoft Word understand new English words?
The Oxford English Dictionary has a list of new English words for 2025. We’ve checked to see if the Microsoft Word dictionary understands all these new terms. Some of the ‘new’ words are very familiar (‘load’, ‘class’ or ‘terror’) but with new meanings. Others are quite new (‘gigil’, ‘ludraman’ or ‘shweshwe’). We put them into […]
People and File Search apps coming to Microsoft 365
Two new Microsoft 365 “mini-apps” are being rolled out to some customers. People and File Search are coming for business and enterprise customers. Microsoft buries the important limitations of the two new apps, so we’ll put them first to save you wondering. Microsoft 365 Companions Both File Search and People are being called “Companions” or […]
Copilot loses an AI writing competition
The Washington Post has done an interesting comparison of AI services and their email drafts for some difficult situation. Microsoft’s Copilot came last. Check out “We asked 5 AI helpers to write tough emails. One was a clear winner.” (login may be required) The headline is a little misleading. Copilot came last in this comparison, […]
Create A Variance Chart in Excel
There are better ways to chart differences between matching values like budget vs actual than the simplistic one offered by Excel. A variance chart in Excel shows differences and trends at a glance and is easy to make. In Excel, a variance chart visually compares data sets, such as actual performance versus budget, last year […]
Confused About Your OneNote App? Discover the Quick and Easy Tricks to Identifying which one you have
There are a few ways to quickly tell which OneNote app you have on Windows. The OneNote that will continue development or the OneNote for Windows app which is gradually being allowed to die. Previously we’ve explained about the upcoming changes for OneNote, including how Microsoft have decided to keep the OneNote desktop program ongoing, […]
OneDrive messages pushed into Microsoft 365 apps.
Microsoft is adding yet another push for customers to save all their documents to OneDrive. This time inside Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. OneDrive is Microsoft’s preferred place to save files and they cite various benefits to cloud storage. The company ignores the downsides to OneDrive and the right of customers to choose where to […]
More Microsoft ads inside Office apps
Microsoft has no shame about dropping ads into paid Microsoft Office apps when there’s a way for the company to make even a little more money. We’ve received reports of the Word 365 or PowerPoint 365 side-pane opening to show this ad because the customer has turned off automatic renewal (aka recurring billing). It’s bad […]
Pie or Pi emoji and more in Microsoft Office
Three Pie emoji 🥧 🍕🍰 in Microsoft Office (Windows or Mac) plus some Stock Images, one for ‘Pi’ and a lot more for ‘Pie’. Just part of our tongue-in-cheek Pi 𝜋 Day and Pie series of articles. Pi 𝜋 emoji There is no emoji for 𝜋 because it’s a text symbol (Unicode U+1D70B) To insert 𝜋 […]
Gregory Forrest “Woody” Leonhard (1951-2025)
We mourn the passing of Woody Leonhard, Office Watch co-founder, on 8 March 2025 at age 73. Back in 1996, Woody Leonhard and Peter Deegan teamed up to create “Woody’s Office Watch” (the precursor of Office Watch) as a way to spread accurate and detailed news about Microsoft Office. Woody created a unique tone for […]
Microsoft treats its customers like fools
Sometimes it hard to know if Microsoft is suffering from ‘cognitive dissonance’ or deliberately treat their customers like fools that will accept anything the company says, no matter how nonsensical it is. Captain Worf has some words of wisdom … More that a few Office Watch readers asked about this conflicting message from Microsoft. First […]
Why Word prefers corporate speak and how to change it
The reason Microsoft Word prefers ‘corporate speak’, phrases and language but there is more than one way to change Word’s grammar and style suggestions to suit you. Quite often on social media there are complaints about Microsoft Word’s grammar and style suggestions like this one. “MS Word suddenly dislikes the phrase “in order to.” Who […]
Would you like some Ramen with your font?
Check out this headline ‘ramen’ font that looks great and has a clever name – Times New Ramen. Seine Kongruangkit made a font from photos of noodles, nifty use of Photoshop and an undying love of Ramen noodles <g>. Times New Ramen – you have to love it, just for the name alone! The photorealistic […]
Group and Ungroup objects in Word, PowerPoint and Office
Shapes, images, and other items can be grouped together and often should be in Word, PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office apps. When you group shapes or objects, you can move, resize, rotate, flip them all at once, as if they were a single object. If you’ve ever had trouble moving something in Office but found […]
Cheap phone calls now Skype is ending
With Skype ending what are the choices for making cheap phone calls, especially saving money on international calls? The ability to link computers and devices to regular phone numbers is something that Skype excelled at. You could call phone numbers from a device or setup a phone number that people could call for you to […]
