Try out the Meta image maker – Imagine
Meta has joined the ‘text to image’ AI race with Imagine. Here’s how to use it to make interesting pictures quickly and bypass its current limits. There are so many AI tools out there, in particular ‘text to image’ makers, Microsoft has ‘Generate Image’ in Designer and a separate Image Creator as well as the […]
Pantone’s 2024 color ‘Peach Fuzz’ in Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Pantone’s color of the year for 2024 is “Peach Fuzz”. You can use that exact color in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Designer using the Hex/RGB color code. And we’ll look at the flowery prose that’s become a hallmark of this annual promotion. The color of 2024 is … Peach Fuzz As usual what’s more […]
Ten ways to select text fast in Microsoft Word
In Microsoft Word, you can use keyboard or mouse shortcuts to select characters, words, lines, paragraphs, and blocks of text faster. Here are ten different selection tricks that Word experts know to speed up their work. Select a Sentence Highlight an entire sentence in Word by simply holding down the Ctrl key, or the Command […]
Stop Designer in PowerPoint
Designer in PowerPoint 365 is great, but it can be too pushy and intrusive with the Design Ideas pane popping up too much. Designer risks becoming the new ‘Clippy’! Here’s how to stop Designer appearing until you want it. PowerPoint Designer suggests slide designs based on the content. It’s a cloud service which means there […]
Tricks to get more from PowerPoint Designer
PowerPoint Designer and Design Ideas is the start, not the end, of making a great looking presentation. Some simple changes will make something unique and not obviously copied from Microsoft’s template supply. We’ll show how to dig into the Design Ideas to change individual slide elements a little, or a lot. Not familar with PowerPoint Designer … get the […]
Getting More from PowerPoint Designer
PowerPoint Designer should just be the start of making a great looking presentation. A few manual adjustments will transform Microsoft’s automated suggestions into something awesome and unique. All the design helpers in PowerPoint and Office have the same problem. Everyone uses them and so a lot of slides or docs end up looking the same. Instead of […]
Make PowerPoint Designer better, add some words
PowerPoint’s Designer suggestions work better if you add some words to the slide first. If you add some broad keywords or title, it gives Designer clues for the most appropriate look. Designer uses the text to choose from the many templates available. The words don’t have to appear in the final presentation, just while selecting […]
Using Designer for more eye-catching PowerPoint slides
PowerPoint Designer is perhaps the most interesting and useful feature in PowerPoint 365. It turns a basic slide into something eye-catching. Here’s how to use Design Ideas effectively and wisely. It’s a very quick and easy way to take a couple of Design Elements and create a full-blooded Custom Style for your Slide Show with a […]
Get over 3,000 more great Office icons from Google
Google has more than 3,000 Icons available to add into Microsoft Office documents from either SVG files or a font. Material Symbols are a collection of small icons, much like the Icons available in modern Office. As SVG files they can be recolored and changed from their standard black line look. Use them in Word […]
Sketchy line option in Office for Windows and Mac
Office for Windows and Mac has three special outline styles for the borders of shapes and text boxes. Called ‘Sketched’ or ‘Sketchy‘ because they have a hand-drawn line look. It’s a nice little addition to Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook. Let’s see how it works plus some details and limitations that Microsoft hasn’t mentioned. All […]
Sketchy or wriggly lines in Icons and SVG graphics
Microsoft Office Icons and other SVG graphics can be improved a lot simply with Sketchy or Sketched lines. They turn an icon or graphic from something formal into a hand-drawn and casual look. Sketchy lines is the ‘hand-drawn’ line option available in Microsoft 365 for Windows or Mac plus Office 2021. It lets you change […]
Better Icon, illustration or SVG editing trick in Office
Get more from Microsoft Office Icons, Illustrations, Cartoon People and other SVG graphics by turning them into Office Shapes which opens up many more options for editing and recoloring the graphic. That includes ‘splitting’ a single graphic into parts that can be changed separately. Microsoft 365, Office 2021, 2019 and 2016 for Windows/Mac have an […]
How hackers trick you to open infected documents
Here’s how to avoid the tricks hackers use to infect your computer via Office documents. Microsoft has added features to Office that should make it harder to infect your computer via a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document. Hackers have found ways to trick people into bypassing those warnings and enable the viruses in the document. […]
Office Application Guard is on the way out
Microsoft Application Guard for Office is being ‘deprecated’ (phased out) in Windows 11 and Windows 10 after only a few years. No official reason has been given and the excuses don’t make sense. Back in 2019 Microsoft announced Application Guard as a new way to isolate macro enabled documents from unknown sources. Suspect documents are […]
Telephone location ✆ emoji in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Insert the Telephone location ✆ symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Telephone location ✆ symbol is supposed to be used as a sign for a phone box or booth but can be used for any ‘phone’ purpose. See also: Telephone Receiver 📞 Emoji In Word, Excel, […]
Tricks to using YouTube videos into PowerPoint
Online videos from YouTube and other sources can be played within a PowerPoint slide and there are tricks to make the presentation better and work around some limitations. The ability to insert online videos from YouTube and other sources has been in PowerPoint for some time. Insert | Media | Video | Online Video But […]
