All about Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and earlier versions.
Two ⸘ Interrobang symbols ‽ in Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint
What is an interrobang ‽ and how to use it in Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint. Also the Inverted Interrobang ⸘ that can be used with ‽ Interrobang or interabang ‽ is a non-standard punctuation mark – a combination of a question mark and exclamation mark in a single character (glyph). It can be […]
Send scheduled emails more reliably than Outlook
Schedule or delay sending an email more reliably than using Outlook desktop apps. Even better, it’s incredibly simple to do in Gmail, Outlook.com or any Exchange Server mailbox including Microsoft 365 hosted mail. We’ve explained how to use “Delayed Delivery” in Outlook desktop apps and also the many problems with that feature. There are various […]
See the whole ‘raw’ email message in Outlook
“ I need to see the entire message that was sent to me, headers, MIME parts, the lot. How can I do that in Outlook?” – Gary G, Taupo NZ. The short answer is, you can’t, with a possible exception. That’s not the answer you’ll see elsewhere on the Internet but it’s the sad truth. […]
Delayed Sending in Outlook has problems and bugs
You can delay sending an email in Outlook. It’s a handy trick that can help make sure your message is read. Here’s how to schedule send an email plus the many traps, complications and a long-standing Outlook bug. A Washington Post article headed The one simple trick to make sure your email gets noticed caught […]
Year of the Rabbit images and more in Microsoft Office
2023 is the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese calendar. There’s plenty of rabbit, bunny and other New Year related images, icons and Chinese character 兔 in Microsoft Office plus advice on the right colors to use for Chinese New Year graphics. Chinese New Year is on 22 January 2023, an excuse for fireworks, […]
Microsoft 365 customers get more from Clipchamp
Microsoft has quietly added a few extras to their Clipchamp video editor for Microsoft 365 customers. We’ll show which premium filters and effects for free, now available just for having a Microsoft 365 consumer plan. When we say Microsoft “quietly” added these extras, we mean it. There’s been no announcement, let alone the standard Redmond […]
Why the US government is switching to Calibri font
The US State Department is changing from Times New Roman font for documents to Calibri. There are good reasons for the change though, as usual, there are objections and a little Microsoft Mystery. Calibri is the current default font in Microsoft Word and other Office apps. It’s been the default since Office 2007, though users […]
All about Office 2021 for Windows & Mac
Office 2021 is the current ‘perpetual licence’ or non-subscription version of Microsoft Office for consumers and small businesses, here’s details of what’s new, prices, shorter support time and why Microsoft doesn’t want to sell Office 2021 at all! It’s what Microsoft calls a ‘perpetual licence’ version. A single payment for ongoing use of the software […]
DAX functions in Excel that everyone should have
Excel 365 for Windows is getting more functions only for Data Models with PowerPivot. Data Analysis Expression (DAX) functions are useful for exploring large datasets. There are a few UTC time/date functions we’d like to see made available to all Excel users. A full list of the new DAX functions are below, two of those […]
Compass 🧭 symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Insert a Compass 🧭 symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Compass 🧭 uses Segoe UI Emoji In Windows, the Compass 🧭 symbol is in the font: Segoe UI Emoji. Depending on the app and use, it’ll appear in color or black. The symbol can […]
Quick change the language setting in Word
There’s a way to quickly change the language setting for a multi-lingual Microsoft Word document, by adding a language selector to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) like this. Use this as a pull-down list to change the language setting in parts of a document. The problem is the fixed width of the toolbar item, which […]
Cool Excel Year Planner now available for download
A clever and different year planner with a progress thermometer is now available for download as an Excel workbook. The days remaining in the year are visible with weekends shaded and each day of week shown. At the bottom is a clever use of Excel’s Chart features to make a progress ‘thermometer’ for the year. […]
Converting Google Docs to Microsoft Word
Google Docs can be handy for sharing and working on documents with other people, but sometimes you just really need that file in Microsoft Word. No problem – it’s actually really easy to convert them. All you have to do is download the file and save it as a Word doc, Excel sheet or PowerPoint deck. If the Google Docs File is Open […]
8 simple ‘Prohibited’ symbols for smoking, phones, kids and more in Word
Some ‘not allowed’ or ‘prohibited’ symbols, they can be used in Word, PowerPoint, Excel or Outlook. No Smoking, No Phone, No Children, No Drinking, No Pedestrians, No Bicycles, Not Drinkable Water or Mute. The Unicode symbol list includes red circle with diagonal to stop, smoking, children under 18, Mobile Phones, Littering, Pedestrians, bicycles plus no […]
Bulk conversion of old Office documents to new formats
How to bulk convert old documents (.doc .xls .ppt) into the newer Office formats (.docx .xlsx .pptx etc.). Microsoft has never produced a simple bulk conversion tool for the masses, much to the annoyance of users and network administrators. Redmond probably made that choice for their own self-interest but some of the reasons also serve […]
Ohm symbol Ω in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Type the Ohm symbol Ω into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Also the unofficial Siemens symbol, an inverted Ohm ℧ . Ohm is a measure of electical resistance with the symbol Ω It’s an official SI Unit of measurement just like gram, metre and many […]
