All about Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and earlier versions.
Playing one song after another in PowerPoint
To play a selection of different audio tracks, one after another is surprisingly clumsy even in Microsoft 365 PowerPoint. For example, you might like to have multiple tracks from a single album or several movements from a symphony. We expected that a simple Animation would work with the second music track set to play ‘after previous’ […]
Add music for the whole PowerPoint presentation
A common request is for music to play throughout a PowerPoint presentation. Handy for automatic and kiosk slideshows. That’s easy in PowerPoint these days. Insert the audio then look on the Playback tab. There’s a choice ‘Play in Background’ that does the job in one click. ‘Play in Background’ is just a way of turning on three existing settings: Play across […]
Almost Equal ≈ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Almost Equal sign ≈ can be typed into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. The Almost Equal symbol ≈ is commonly used within Mathematics to indicate two values are roughly equal, but not exactly equal. Or use it whenever you need horizontal wavy lines! How Almost […]
Moving a row or column in Excel
How to move rows or columns up, down or across an Excel worksheet. There’s a quick way but it’s not obvious. Excel has a variety of different ways in doing this, but it’s important to know the fastest and easiest way, to save you a lot of time and hassle. In Word, moving paragraphs or […]
Easy 2024 calendars in Microsoft Word
Word has many calendars in the File | New templates supplied by Microsoft. Search for “calendar” in the File | New pane then make simple changes to suit you. In Microsoft Word’s File | New pane, search for ‘calendar’. There are two basic calendar designs: Start of Week Some have macros to change which day […]
Google Font recommended pairing for Word and Office
Here’s how to choose good looking font pairs for your Word headings and body text or PowerPoint titles and text. We’ve shown you how to use Google Fonts in your Office documents. The Google Fonts site itself is little help but others have curated suggested pairings. Most of the suggested Google Font pairs are for […]
Using WOFF fonts in Microsoft Office
WOFF are a new-ish type of font that you might have seen mentions or downloads. Here’s how to use them in Microsoft Office; Word, Excel or PowerPoint. WOFF is Web Open Font Format designed to be compact and easy to download. WOFF is for web sites and mobile apps, not desktop programs like Office. Despite […]
NSFW or ‘naughty’ words aren’t in Microsoft Word – why?
There’s a strange, almost prudish, feature in the Microsoft Word spell checker aka Microsoft Editor that’s used in many of the company’s products. We’ll explain Microsoft seeming avoidance of ‘Naughty Bits’ and why it’s happening. Warning! This article is unusually explicit (NSFW) for Office Watch. If sexually explicit but standard words (not slang) might offend, […]
Up Down Arrow with Base ↨ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Type Up Down Arrow with Base or underline ↨ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. How Up Down Arrow with Base ↨ looks in different fonts. Here’s some examples of how Up Down Arrow with Base / Underline ↨ looks in common Office fonts. Up […]
Why are three symbols censored by Microsoft Windows and Office?
There are three symbols that Microsoft won’t put in their fonts for Windows and Office. They are obscure and you’re unlikely to need them. It’s an interesting bit of trivia and example of the differing corporate cultures and judgements. (This article includes an image that might offend some people. NSFW, as they say). There’s a […]
Office security fix bypassed in an incredibly simple way
An important Microsoft Office related security bug fix has been bypassed by hackers in an embarrassingly simple way. Back in September 2021, Microsoft released a fix for a security bug which involved accessing a web page within a Word document (docx or rtf). That web page then downloaded and ran a CAB file (a compressed […]
Replying to emails with colored backgrounds
Outlook replies can be a problem of invisible or hard to read text when the incoming email has a color background. We’ll explain the problem and how to fix your reply email. Messages with colored backgrounds might look OK to the sender but are a pain when you try to reply or forward. Most of […]
Outlook Email: why Format Background is called Page Color
If you want to change the background color on an email, Outlook’s option to do that has changed name and location. At least Windows users can change background color, Outlook for Mac users lost this option at few years ago! A color background can be nice in an email but care is necessary when replying […]
Typing both Tilde ~ ∼ symbols in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
How to insert either of the Tilde ~ ∼ symbols into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Tilde ∼ symbol is easy on some keyboards but for other keyboards, there’s no specific key for Tilde. The two Tilde symbols There are TWO tilde symbols in the […]
Where did WordArt go after Word 2007?
Microsoft loves tinkering with WordArt and in Word 2010 the entire feature was expanded to Text Effects and split into two features on different tabs. Here’s how to find all the old WordArt features plus a lot more. Back in Office 2007 there was one WordArt feature on the Insert tab. It was quite limited […]
Why has Microsoft (finally) trademarked Clippy?
Microsoft’s Clippy, the source of many jokes and frustration is being trademarked, almost 25 years after it was released in Office 97. Why? Hopefully not the first step in a revival of the hated little paperclip? Clippy was the overly persistent helper in Office 97 that kept popping up at the wrong times and refused […]
