Color Font support in Microsoft Office – the story so far
Color fonts are coming to Microsoft Office and Windows but progress is slow and patchy. Here’s a quick summary of color fonts and the occasional, erratic support in Outlook, Word and other Office programs. What are color fonts Since the beginning of Mac and Windows we’ve had single color fonts. Usually black but can be […]
Big savings with the new Office Home Use Program – 2019 style
The Microsoft Office Home Use Program (HUP) is a great way to save on Office 365 or Office 2019 for employees of many companies, organizations, governments and even some military personnel. Here’s details on the savings possible with the recent changes to the HUP. What’s changed? The Home Use Program (HUP) is changing to the […]
Home Use Program for Microsoft Office 365 – who can get it and how?
Here’s who can qualify for cheaper Office 365 Home or Personal under the revised Home Use Program and how to get the lower prices. Employer qualification Your employer must have a Microsoft Office Volume Licence agreement with Software Assurance Maintenance (SAM). If Office is widespread in your organization it’s likely they have a volume licence, […]
Rugby World Cup 2019 in your Outlook calendar
The full match schedule for the 2019 Rugby World Cup can appear in Outlook calendar. Internet calendars can be added to your regular appointments or placed in a separate Outlook calendar that can be viewed side-by-side or overlaid on your regular calendar. 2019 Rugby World Cup calendar First, find an online calendar in the webcal […]
You’d better hurry if you want discounted Office 2019 for $15
The current Home Use Program with Office 2019 sold for a mere $15 is about to end. If you want the perpetual licence Office 2019 for Windows or Mac, you’d better hurry. The full impact of the changed Office Home Use Program (HUP) is becoming clear. We’ve already noted that Office 365 subscriptions are becoming […]
Wiping drives or shredding files in Windows
Here’s a quick and easy way to totally erase file, folders or free disk space so there’s no trace of the original data. Also erasing an entire drive before handing over or selling. As you may know, deleting a file doesn’t really remove it from your computer. Even after deleting from the Recycle Bin, the […]
Have a happy Year of the Pig emoji in Word and Office
It’s the Chinese Year of the Pig and there are some symbols in Word, Excel and PowerPoint to mark the occasion in Office for Windows or Mac. The Unicode standard has three Pig related emoji, Pig, Pig Face and Pig Nose. Once you know the names or hex value, they can be found with the […]
Webmail is bad, use Outlook software instead
Web based email is very common these days but it’s not the best way to handle your email. At worse, webmail can leave you stranded and out-of-touch. A lot of people now use webmail as the only way to access email on their computer, not realising, until it’s too late, that there’s a better way. […]
Email with webmail or software – what’s the difference?
How can you tell if you’re reading email in a web browser or using email software like Outlook for Windows or Mac? This might seem obvious to some but many people use ’email’ without understanding the important difference between webmail and email programs. There are two ways to read and send emails: use software/apps like […]
Office 365 outage and the discount that applies
Office 365 hosted customers in Europe are recovering from an outage of about two days. Affected customers should make sure Microsoft gives them the downtime discount they’re entitled to. The outage affected Office 365 email and other hosting in the UK and parts of Europe, like The Netherlands and Belgium for about two days late […]
Farewell Clutter … hello Focused Inbox in Outlook
Outlook’s Clutter feature is going away in favor of the Focused Inbox. Both have the same limitation that Microsoft doesn’t talk about much. Clutter was a hyped Outlook/Exchange feature which shunted lower priority messages to a separate folder. Marketing emails, group messages etc could go to Clutter leaving, in theory, important emails only in the […]
Make Reddit look like Outlook
If you like Reddit but want to hide it from your boss, co-workers, partner etc then we’ve got a web site for you. It makes Reddit look like Outlook Web Access (aka OWA). Go to https://attaxia.github.io/MSOutlookit/ or http://pcottle.github.io/MSOutlookit/ There’s a web page with the latest Reddit posts in the familiar form of Microsoft Outlook. The […]
Important Outlook setting for sending meeting requests or invitations
If you’re sending meeting requests or invitations there’s an important Outlook option to check. Normally, Outlook within a company, uses Microsoft’s own method for including meeting details. That’s OK ‘in-house’ where you can be sure everyone has Outlook. But you don’t know what people outside the organization use to manage email and calendar. Buried at […]
Is it safe to use Icons / SVG in Outlook emails?
Icons are a relatively new part of Office 365 for Windows/Mac but can they be used in emails that go to people not using Office 365? SVG graphics are widely supported in web browsers but not all email programs know what to do with these new images. What do they see if you’ve used an […]
Why can’t you buy individual Office programs?
Office Watch reader, Meredith M. asks a question we’ve heard many times before. Why can’t you buy individual Office programs instead of paying for an Office bundle with programs you don’t need? “My issue: I need ONLY Word, Excel and Access–but I NEED them. I know that I cannot buy them separately but does anyone […]
New Icons for Microsoft Office 365
It’s been five years since the Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Office icons were given a new look. Now they’ve been announced and, frankly, we could not care less. New look icons don’t make any difference to anyone’s daily use of Office. It’s like supermarket groceries that boast ‘New Packaging’ as if any customers care? […]
