Office Watch most popular articles of 2020
Well, that’s been an ‘interesting’ year for all of us <sigh> . Here’s some of the articles that have been popular with our worldwide audience over 2020. Getting more from online video calls With the global lockdown, Office Watch switched roles for a while and added lots of advice for online video calls. We’ve been […]
Editor look & feel changes coming in Word and Outlook
Microsoft has announced some changes to the Editor feature in Word and Outlook to improve access to spell-check and grammar tools. Look for these changes in upcoming releases of Word and Outlook for Windows and later for Mac. Many reports on these changes say that the Editor is a ‘new grammar checker’ in Word 365, […]
Pantone 2021 colors in your Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Pantone has announced not one but TWO ‘colors of the year’ for 2021 and, as usual, we’ll explain how to use those exact colors in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. The colors of 2021 are … Illuminating and Ultimate Grey As usual what’s more amazing than the color is the description that goes with the choice. […]
Office 2010 patches! A nice December 2020 surprise from Microsoft
The usual security fixes for Microsoft Office this month include some unexpected patches for Office 2010 which is a pleasant surprise. Office 2010 is now officially out of support (since 13 October 2020) but still works fine. That’s supposed to mean there’s no more patches. Microsoft hasn’t explained their reason for these unexpected fixes but […]
Office 2010 updates are still available, here’s how
0Patch is stepping in where Microsoft has left by offering continued security updates for Office 2010 after official support was dropped a few months ago. Newly discovered high risk security bugs in Office 2010 will get micropatches from 0Patch. These unofficial updates change the existing program files to prevent the new security lapses troubling your […]
Putting a Command on the Quick Access Toolbar
The Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) is located on the left side of the Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook title bar. You can add commands, options and even symbols for easy and quick obvious access By default, the QAT only has Save, Undo, Redo and Touch/Mouse commands but you can cut down on unnecessary keystrokes by placing […]
Reader’s suggestion for typing a tick in Office
A quick way to type a ü tick or check mark character in Word. Another great Autocorrect suggestion from Morris B. ” … the one that I have found the most useful is to replace ‘./’ with a tick (wingdings 252 – or wingdings 254) “ Using the fullstop/period is a clever Autocorrect prefix since […]
New Apple emoji available now but be careful
The new Apple iOS 14.2 adds 117 new emoji to use but be careful now you use them because not even all iPhone and iPad can handle them, let alone non-Apple devices. We explain how they work, how the emoji appear on receiving devices and include a full list of the newcomers. The new emoji […]
How to get ‘Plus’ email addresses, the new feature in Microsoft 365 and Outlook.com
Plus + , disposable or instant alias email addresses are now available for Microsoft 365 hosted mailboxes and Outlook.com accounts. Here’s how to get this useful email trick for your mailbox. Outlook.com All Outlook.com accounts have plus addresses automatically. It was introduced to Hotmail (‘as was’) back in 2013. It’s such an ‘old’ feature, many […]
Get the most from Plus addresses in Outlook
Outlook for Windows/Mac has features that work well with email plus or disposable addresses. Plus addresses let you make sub-addresses that come to the same mailbox see What are email Plus addresses and how to use them for details. Outlook Rules with plus addresses Most Outlook Rules are based on the senders address but there […]
Copyright © tricks for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Tricks for typing the Copyright © into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Copyright © symbol isn’t on any keyboard but is so commonly used that there are special shortcuts available to type © Copyright © in Word and Outlook The Copyright © has an inbuilt […]
Check out Outlook’s “Smart” Replies to literary and movie classics
We’ve tried out famous and classic lines on Microsoft suggested reply feature. Inspired by The New Yorker’s tests with Gmail. In Google Smart Reply, Literary Critic, Bruce Handy checks out the Smart Reply suggestions from Gmail to lines like this from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. Microsoft 365 hosted Exchange Server has a similar ‘suggestions’ feature which […]
Illustrations, new graphics in Microsoft 365 Windows and Mac
Illustrations are a new graphics option coming to Microsoft 365 that supplements the existing Icons with a wider range of visual aids for documents, emails, worksheets and slides. They’ve appeared, without any mention, in preview versions of Microsoft 365 for Windows (version 13415.20002) and Microsoft 365 for Mac (v16.43 20102102) On the same dialog box […]
Sound Recording Copyright ℗ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Put the Sound Recording Copyright ℗ or Circled P character into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Sound Recording Copyright ℗ symbol (aka Circled P ) is used to mark musical copyright. The ‘P’ stands for ‘Phonogram’ or the modern ‘Phonorecord’ (a broad term for any […]
Quickly add continent maps to your Office documents
Adding a continent map is easy in Word, Excel or Powerpoint, in fact there’s a few ways to get them for the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and Antarctica. It depends on the quality you need and version of Office. Continental Icons Among the many icons are silhouettes of all the continents – at least […]
Paste Icons or SVG from Office documents to other apps
Microsoft is expanding their support for SVG graphics by allowing these ‘Icons’ to be copied from Office documents into other third-party apps. Users can take an Office Icon or SVG and easily copy it to another app to use or change beyond Office’s in-built features. There’s no special menu item or feature, it’s part of […]