Quick Fix for Office display problems
How to quickly fix display problems in Microsoft Office. When Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook don’t show up on the screen correctly. It doesn’t happen often but occasionally Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook open but as all grey. Clicking around the screen displays just a ribbon or menu but not the whole program. If other […]
Repeating or recurring Outlook Appointments
Outlook can record appointments in the Calendar but it can also record ‘recurring’ appointments for things that happen on a regular schedule. We’ll show you how to make a repeating appointment and suggest some ways it can be used that might not be immediately obvious. Repeating Appointments 101 To make a recurring appointment: Create a […]
Surface Earbuds with Office
Microsoft’s Surface Earbuds are out now and have some extras for Word, Outlook and PowerPoint users. When we look past the hype there’s more than a few special conditions to keep in mind. Surface Earbuds have been some time coming, we first mentioned them about nine months ago. Now they are here, reviews have been […]
Animated GIF’s coming to Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Animated GIF support is coming (finally!) to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. We discovered the new feature in a new Insiders build, Microsoft hasn’t announced anything. Here’s an animated GIF playing in Word 365. Paste or Insert an animated GIF now has play/pause buttons included (bottom left corner). The animation starts playing automatically when inserted. […]
What’s new in Office for Windows – May 2020
Some useful new features have now been rolled out to the public versions of Microsoft 365 (Office 365) for May 2020. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook all have improvements. Two we’ve already told you about, the other is new. Stock Images, Cutout People and Stickers Or what Microsoft calls “New images to bring your documents […]
‘Tell me’ help now in Mac Office 365 with the same limitations
‘Tell me’ help box is now in Microsoft/Office 365 for Mac as a way to find features on the ribbon. However it continues to have the same limitations that are in the Windows version. Look for the lightbulb and ‘Tell me’ box beside the ribbon tabs. Type in a phrase and Office will show relevant […]
Stop embarrassing template or stock phrases in Outlook emails
A UK politician got caught sending an email with optional stock phrases and guides still in the message. Is there a simple way to stop that happening? Most organizations have standard wording and stock phrases which is understandable but there’s a risk those helpers are left in an email or document that goes out to […]
It’s getting closer … shared signatures in Outlook
The promise of shared Outlook signatures is a little closer. Microsoft has announced that signatures in Outlook for Windows will be saved to the cloud from June 2020. At the moment, customers have to manually copy email signatures between Outlook’s or use a folder sync method to share the signature folders between computers. Customers have […]
Did Chris Pratt’s 51,000 emails really delete?
Chris Pratt released a video showing 51,000 emails being deleted from his computer. Are they really completely lost? We doubt it. On Instagram we see his shock as the Trash folder gradually counts down the messages being removed from his computer. That’s supposedly the 51,000 Inbox messages that he’d promised to respond to during lockdown. […]
Outlook’s ‘Permanent’ delete but doesn’t – how we tested it.
When Outlook displays a ‘This will be permanently deleted’ it’s not really deleted. For anyone interested in the gory details or testing themselves, here’s how we checked that out. It’s standard database procedure for a deleted record simply to be flagged ‘deleted’ rather than fully erased or overwritten. Tagging as ‘deleted’ and hiding from the […]
Add Outlook appointment in another time zone
Outlook for Windows and Mac can easily add appointments or events using times from another time zone. They’ll show up and remind you in your local time. That’s really handy for global meetings or live streams scheduled in other locations. Enter the Outlook appointment or event using the time and time zone given by the […]
Combined Drawing Tools in Word 365 and other Office programs
The Drawing Tools in Word 365 is now larger with separate tools like Lasso and Eraser now in a single combined gallery. There are other changes and new limitations on the Drawing Tools gallery, some of them undocumented. Compare that to the old Draw tab where the Lasso, Eraser and Add Pen were separate from […]
Reply All Storm Protection comes to Office 365 hosted
Office 365 hosted organizations will soon get protection from Reply All email storms. Reply All storms happen with large distributions lists (e.g. whole company or division). Too many people hit ‘Reply All’ sending thousands of messages to already cluttered mailboxes. Now, if there’s too much ‘Reply All’ activity in a list, Exchange Server will block […]
X Æ A-12 in Microsoft Word and Office
Elon Musk and partner have named their child X Æ A-12 (no kidding) how do you type Æ in Microsoft Word and Office generally. The child’s name doesn’t trigger any spelling or grammar errors in Word. No squiggly lines. What is Æ ? Æ or æ is a a-e ligature that was used in English […]
Looking back on Love – the Love Bug in Windows
Just like the Melissa virus, looking back to the Love Bug virus of May 2000 shows how much has changed and how much has remained the same. Much the same story as the Melissa virus that came out a few months before. Love Bug or I Love You was a VBScript virus sent mostly by […]
Format Painter with Shapes and gradients
Format Painter in Office will work to copy formatting between shapes which is very useful for complex Gradients. But they don’t always format copy in the way you’d expect. We’re obliged to Office-Watch.com reader, Lorelei, for pointing out that Format Painter can copy gradient fills in most but not all situations. To copy the formatting […]
