All about Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and earlier versions.
Critical new flaw in Microsoft Outlook allows (too) easy access
All Outlook for Windows have a critical bug which makes it too easy for any hacker to gain access to a computer. It just needs a simple link clicked from an email to bypass Office Protected View protections, even from the Preview pane. So all Outlook’s should be updated asap. Microsoft rates the security bug […]
A good part of Designer has been Erased!
A good part of Designer has been deleted with no notice or explanation. Erase is missing with only a ‘dumb’ alternative. The feature is Erase it let you select and remove parts of an image and automatically fill the area with surrounding content. The entire ‘Erase’ option has disappeared for no reason that Microsoft cares […]
A Loop feature that should be in all Office apps
Microsoft Loop has a new feature that should be added to Word and PowerPoint, see what text has been written by Copilot AI instead of a human. Loop is adding a tag (‘floatie’) which shows who wrote some text and includes ‘Copilot’ as one of those authors. That’s a very useful piece of information especially […]
Last minute Heart icons for Valentine’s Day
Need a heart symbol or image for your Valentine’s Day message, email, slide or card? Microsoft Office Icons have many choices available including Icons. Many of the stock or supplied resources in Office have passionate ‘heart’ symbols. As you’ll see, there are some anatomically correct icons among the romantic ones, just ignore them <g>. Icons […]
Using AI tools for a personal touch to Valentine’s Day
The latest AI tools can help add a personal touch to Valentine’s Day images, graphics and text like a love poem. Add some details about your loved one (name, hobbies etc.) and AI can do its magic. Free AI tools like Copilot, Microsoft Designer, Dall-E or ChatGPT can make something that’s individual and unique. In […]
Copilot’s Legal Trap or what you’re giving to Microsoft
Just by using Copilot you’re giving Microsoft free access to anything you do or get from their AI system. It’s a legal trap that everyone needs to keep in mind. We found this buried in the Copilot Terms and Conditions (T&C’s) starting on the Bing web site https://www.bing.com/new/termsofuse (strange place for it to hide). Microsoft’s […]
Essential ways to strengthen your Microsoft account
Most readers of Office Watch will have a Microsoft account but is it as secure as it should be? Two-step authentication is becoming essential for the key Microsoft account. If you have Microsoft 365, OneDrive, Outlook.com, Windows 11/10/8.1/8, Windows Phone or (likely) Skype then you’ll have a Microsoft account. It’s the single login for all […]
How Office improves without customers even noticing
While a lot of Word, Excel and PowerPoint might appear to be the same for decades, there’s a lot of work happening ‘under the hood’ to keep Office working. Gilad Oren at Microsoft has written an interesting piece on how the whole real-time collaboration feature in Microsoft Office has been changed to make it faster […]
Make Images with Google Bard
For yet another way to make AI images, perhaps with a different look, you can now try Google Bard. Bard is Google’s AI helper, now available in ‘most countries’ (Google’s wording) but only in English for the moment. It does all the things we’ve come to expect from a broad AI service, similar to Copilot. […]
No Data? Excel’s Autofill is not the answer
Two economics professors have been caught using Excel’s Autofill feature to fill in the blanks to complete a published academic paper. A study on green innovations and patents in 27 countries by two professors has come under scrutiny by a student as reported, by Retraction Watch. The paper was said to use “balanced panel data” which is […]
Using Alt to get accent and other characters
Keyboard shortcuts for special characters that work outside Office and without special setup on any Windows computer. It’s possible to enter any character into a Windows program using the Alt key plus the number pad (usually on the right side of a larger keyboard). This is a handy shortcut to enter accent or other non-keyboard […]
Five ways (and more) to type Accent characters in Word and Outlook
More than five ways to type characters with accent, grave, circumflex, tilde, umlaut, dieresis or cedilla in Microsoft Word and Outlook when they aren’t on the keyboard such as á ã à ä Ç ç ē é ê è ë â ê î ô û and many more. Typing accented letters can be a chore […]
Microsoft Word – switch away from Aptos fonts
There are at least two ways to switch away from the new Aptos fonts in Microsoft Word and back to the old Calibri fonts or something else. Microsoft has forced a change to Aptos as the new default font in Word but that change doesn’t suit everyone. In particular, Aptos doesn’t make much (or any) […]
Outlook – change away from Aptos font
Switch from the new Aptos default font in Outlook to another font that you prefer and is has better readability in Outlook desktop (Windows or Mac) and Outlook (new). Personally I’ve tried to like Aptos fonts but after a few months they still offend my eyes, especially in emails. It’s too ‘blocky’ and hard to […]
What’s the deal with Microsoft’s Copilot Copyright Commitment
Microsoft loves to boast about their “Copilot Copyright Commitment” but what does it really mean and how much protection do customers really get? There’s a concern that AI generated content might be subject to intellectual property (IP) law suits. Perhaps because an AI image or text is too similar to copyrighted content. The New York […]
Combined ‘one-click’ update for both Windows and Office
Here’s a combined ‘one-click’ way to force an update to both Windows and Microsoft Office at the same time. Normally Windows and Office both update themselves automatically and in the background so you don’t have to worry about it. But there are times when you need to ensure both are fully updated. To do that […]
