Microsoft Office and Oreos combine with Clippy – no joke
If you thought the modern world could not get any stranger, we’ve got bad news. Microsoft Office and Oreos (the chocolate cookie) have combined for a marketing stunt with online events (sorry “snack breaks”), special packs, tchotchke and emoji. Poor old Clippy has been dragged in as well. On the practical side, we’ll show how […]
Yen ¥ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Type the Yen ¥ currency symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Yen is used for Japanese currency and the Chinese Renminbi / Yuan. Microsoft Excel also offers the Yen symbol for Mongolia even though the tögrög currency uses another symbol. ¥ symbol is easy […]
Yes, you can add an online calendar to Outlook for Mac
There is a way to add an online calendar (aka webcal) to Outlook for Mac, even though it’s not directly possible. It’ll also add the subscribed calendar to iPhone and iPad. Subscribed calendars are really useful for adding in events like sports and club meetings. There are webcal:// links available on many web sites. Unlike […]
Link unfurling in Outlook
What is ‘link unfurling’, an upcoming feature in Microsoft Outlook An unfurled link appears in an email as an interactive preview card – not just a preview but something the receiver can update. Link unfurling is already in Teams, now it’s coming to Outlook 365 for Windows. Here’s Microsoft’s example where a link has been […]
Three ways to view multiple Outlook calendars
Outlook can handle more than one calendar and has three options for easily viewing them, either individually or combined. Calendars can be displayed side-by-side or the more useful Overlay option. There’s also the ‘New Window’ option. Choosing the Outlook calendars to view In Outlook calendar view, use the check boxes in the calendar list to […]
Add an Internet shared calendar to Outlook
Outlook can link to external, shared, calendars and copy any updates to that calendar using either a .ics tile or a webcal link. An Internet calendar can be for public events, holidays, sporting fixtures etc. They can be a one-time copy of event details or you can setup Outlook to check for updates to […]
How to ‘ignore’ emails in Outlook
Occasionally you’ll get someone who sends lots of messages you don’t want to see. Outlook has a few options for refusing or politely ignoring messages from certain email senders – either individually or automatically. Most commonly these are enthusiastic zealots on some subject and are trying to ‘spread the word’ on their pet subject. They […]
Formatting email Invitations in Outlook
Meeting or party invitations don’t have to be plain, old white background emails, go for something a little more fancy or useful. Officially, Microsoft suggests using their Stationery themes to change the look of an email. But that’s not available for invitation emails. There are some formatting choices also missing from invitation emails. Whenever formatting […]
Outlook checks for incoming attachments like .doc .xls .ppt
We’ve warned against incoming ‘old’ Office documents (.doc .xls etc) because of the virus risk, so how can you setup Outlook to warn you about emails with those attachments? Sadly, it’s not easy. Outlook has automatic Rules to check incoming messages, but none of those rules can test for the file extensions on email attachments. […]
Beware .doc files in emails
Many of the dangerous emails arriving in your Inbox have one thing in common — they use the old (and risky) Word .DOC format. .DOC .XLS or .PPT are exactly the sort of email attachments you should avoid. The main ‘red flag’ is the email attachment of a .DOC file (or .XLS or PPT). These […]
Fix the default mail link back to Outlook
How to make mail links on web pages or emails open in Outlook for Windows instead of some other mail app. Fix this in Windows 11, Windows 10 and earlier Windows. Sometimes Outlook ‘forgets’ that it’s the place for all email work. You click on an email address and get some other app or nothing […]
Why are there now two “Outlook for Windows”?
Microsoft is hyping a new “Outlook for Windows” as a coming replacement to the familiar Windows program giving both the same “Outlook for Windows” name even though the two programs are completely different and the proposed replacement is quite crippled. Let’s start with a little naming explanation because Microsoft seems determined to continue making the […]
What’s in and out of the new Outlook
Microsoft’s proposed “Outlook for Windows” replacement has some additional features but still lacks features that most people would think are essential for any mail program. This “New Outlook” can’t do things that the Outlook apps for Windows, Mac, Apple and Android could do from the start. The “New Outlook” is a totally different type of […]
Show Unicode number for a character in Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word has a simple and quick way to reveal the Unicode value or character number for any letter, symbol or emoji using the Alt + X shortcut. As you may know, each character shown on a computer is really a number. There’s an accepted list of symbols called Unicode which lists thousands of characters […]
File menu change for the better in Office 365
A small but very welcome change to the File menu in Office 365 for Windows to handle the overflow at the bottom of the window. It’s one of those changes that Microsoft doesn’t promote or even mention. Maybe because it’s quite small or perhaps because it fixes an embarrassing design flaw. The File menu scrolled […]
Easily apply the same picture format to many images in Word or PowerPoint
Here’s how to apply the same formatting, borders and picture styles to more than one picture or graphic in Word, PowerPoint or Excel. There’s an unexpected and easy way to do it. Picture Format tools don’t have custom styles (Microsoft please note) only the in-built pre-sets. If you want to apply the same formatting to […]
