All about Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and earlier versions.
Inside the Language choice bug in Word
Sometimes Word will switch to another language despite all the settings saying otherwise. With the help of an Office Watch reader, we’ve dug into the details to find what might cause the bug in Word and suggest some possible solutions. Word and Office should obey the default language setup in Office but, as some people […]
How to check what the clipboard is saving
There’s a simple way to drill into the Windows or Mac clipboard to see what’s saved and how it’s saved. The clipboard is a lot more complicated than most people think. Happily, most of the time the complications don’t matter to us mere humans. Copying text from, say, Word might seem simple but each time […]
Famous logos with the fonts they use
Ever wondered what font is used in a famous logo? There’s a fascinating collection of familiar brands with their names replaced with the font name. Emanuele Abrate has made Logofonts, for example the Starbucks logo with the font name, FreightSans Black. Nike uses Futura. WhatsApp with HelveticaNeue. YouTube uses AlternativeGothic and Instagram has Billabong. Once […]
How to correctly spell Brontë in Microsoft Word with the diaresis
An 85-year-old blunder has just been fixed at Westminster Abbey to change the spelling to Brontë with the important diaresis. Here’s how to type an ë in Word and other matters arising. Here’s how the memorial to the Brontë sisters looked in Poets Corner until a few days ago. For 85 years this memorial, seen […]
Audio tricks and traps in PowerPoint
There are plenty of audio and music options available in PowerPoint if you want to give your audience a break from your voice. We’ll go beyond the simple ‘adding music’ help to give some practical advice for audio in presentations: You will find the audio basics at Insert | Media | Audio Choose a music/audio file […]
Microsoft Office and the “Dialog from Hell”
A short video which brings up some interesting points in the early development history of Microsoft Office, some might surprise you. Microsoft Office started as separately sold products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) and only gradually did they become an integrated package with shared components, consistent interface and some interconnections. See the whole video on […]
Make a great Word document banner – free
Add something special to the start of your Word document with a banner image with text. We’ll explain how to do that with free tools like Copilot or Designer. We were inspired by a Microsoft promotion which wrongly said that a Microsoft 365 subscription with Copilot Pro is required, when really neither of those things […]
Copilot Wave 2 – watch out for the fine-print
A new collection of Copilot features have been released under the banner “Wave 2” with inclusions for Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Word and Teams. Don’t get too excited because there’s ‘fine print’ that limits who can catch this wave. Before we explain a little of what’s in the new set of Copilot features, let’s look at […]
All about the basics of Styles in Word
Here’s the basics of Styles in Word for paragraph, character or both (Linked) plus Tables and Lists. I know talking about styles in Word makes eyes glaze over but they are a really useful part of Word (plus Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook). Today I watched an ‘experienced’ Word user reformatting a document. He laboriously worked […]
Building In-Cell Bar Charts in Excel
In-cell charts in Excel provide a powerful method to visualize data trends and patterns. They allow you to quickly derive insights within a worksheet, making information interpretation more straightforward without fussing about with full charts. We’ll explain how to make in-cell charts and then go further and show how to make them look better by […]
Lock up and stop editing of Excel worksheet or cells!
How to lock your Excel worksheet from editing – the whole thing or some cells. Allow some people to edit a few cells, leaving the rest of the cells and formulas untouchable by others using the worksheet. Here’s a very simple example: Anyone opening the worksheet can enter a US dollar amount to see the […]
ActiveX ending soon in Microsoft Office – and good riddance
An old and unsafe Microsoft technology, ActiveX is finally being dropped from Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Office. As usual, there are details and niceties behind the major announcement. For starters, ActiveX isn’t really being discontinued. Microsoft is disabling ActiveX as a default. If you need ActiveX, a menu, registry or Group Policy change will turn […]
Office 2024 release date is in October
Microsoft has announced (indirectly) that Microsoft Office 2024 will be released in October 2024. Don’t buy Office 2021 now, better to wait until Office 2024 is released to get some more features for the same price. This nugget of news came via a Microsoft update announcement to administrators about the end of ActiveX support generally. […]
Pay less for Microsoft 365 with the Workplace Discount Program
The Workplace Discount Program (formerly Home Use Program) offers 30% discounts on Microsoft 365 to employees of many organizations and government agencies. Here’s how the Workplace Discount Program (WDP) works, the tricks and traps. What is the Workplace Discount Program – WDP? Organizations (companies, governments etc.) that have Microsoft 365 volume licenses can get Software […]
Snipping Tool has a secret redaction shortcut
The Windows Snipping Tool has a nifty little redaction shortcut that’s an undocumented secret. The Snipping Tool is available in Windows 11 and 10, the redaction feature (Microsoft calls it “Text Actions” is in Snipping Tool v11.2308.33.0 and later. Use Microsoft Store | Library | Updates to get the latest version. Text Actions aka redaction […]
Busting the myth of Word’s Language Defaults
An often-repeated myth says that Word’s spelling or proofing language default is locked into the Windows language setting. Officially that’s not true and never has been since the first Word for Windows in 1989. In practice there’s a bug in Word which is why this persistent myth keeps being repeated. Changing the Word language default […]
