Illegal colors in Word, PowerPoint and Office
Amazingly, a simple color can be trademarked and using one in a Word, PowerPoint or Office document can be illegal. We’ll explain why and a list of some colors you might need to avoid. Companies can trademark a color that’s associated with their product or logo. If you’re designing a document or presentation, especially for […]
Myth Busting about Office document formats
Even after 15 years, there’s still misinformation about the ‘new’ Office document formats .docx .xlsx etc. We’ll explain these myths and how you can easily disprove them yourself. Most of these myths surround the use of ZIP compression to make the document files smaller. Folks have jumped to wrong conclusions after hearing about ZIP. Not […]
Vertical Bar | symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
How to insert the Vertical Bar | into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Vertical Bar | symbol (technically a glyph) has many uses in computing, physics, maths and typography. In some programming languages | has a special meaning, for example in PowerShell | is called […]
Set your own Text Box default settings in Office
You’re not stuck with the Microsoft Office automatic settings when inserting a new text box. Change the Text Box defaults to whatever you like for faster text box formatting in Office; Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. There are TWO ways to add a Text Box in Word and Outlook – each with their own ways […]
Zero Thirds (Baseball) ↉ emoji in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
How to insert the Zero Thirds (Baseball) ↉ fraction or symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Zero Thirds ↉ symbol (officially called ‘Vulgar Fraction Zero Thirds’) is a rarely used Baseball scoring symbol. The best explanation we could find was a Japanese Wikipedia page, here’s […]
Discover all the Function Key goodies for PowerPoint
Here’s a complete list of the PowerPoint Function Key features from fast access to Help, jumping around the presentation, doc panes, spelling, grammar and guidelines. What you can do with the F-keys labelled F1 through F12 on your keyboard. Don’t like Function Keys? KeyTips are your way to faster Microsoft Office F1 – Help, hide ribbon […]
Secrets still left in docs after Document Inspector in Office
Office’s Document Inspector is supposed to remove or scrub information being accidentally included in Word, Excel or PowerPoint files. It’s not perfect and misses out on some critical hidden information that can give away secrets. Details in images, layers and even highlighting. Document Inspector is at File | Info in Office for Windows. The feature […]
Use the fast list shortcuts in PowerPoint
PowerPoint has, finally, added shortcuts to quickly make bullet or numbered lists without using the ribbon. Here’s the full list of typing shortcuts and how to turn them off. In Word, you’re probably familiar with a list being automatically created if you type * or 1. at the start of a new line. PowerPoint has […]
Construction Sign 🚧 emoji in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
How to insert the Construction or Roadwork Sign 🚧 emoji into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Construction, Roadwork or Warning Sign 🚧 symbol can be used in PowerPoint slides and in other Office documents sometimes to mark WIP or “Work in Progress“. Need more than an […]
How to get better results with Bing Image Creation
Make better and faster images with Bing Image Creation, Dall-E and other AI tools using a few simple tricks. Here’s some ideas and comments with plenty of examples. If you’ve tried Microsoft Designer, Dall-E or other AI image makers, Bing Image Creation is nothing new and works the same way. See What is Dall-E and […]
Copilot might “transform the way we work” but not right now
According to Microsoft, their AI integration Copilot is “A whole new way to work” and will “Transform the way we work”. That’s true, but not as quickly or as well as their overstated hype suggests. Here’s why I’m cautious about the Copilot promises. Microsoft is rushing both publicity and release to keep ahead of Google, […]
Fixing Microsoft Office Unlicensed Product errors
Here’s what to do if you get the dreaded Microsoft 365 / Office 2021 or Office 2019 Unlicensed Product / View only error message. Assuming you have a current Office 2021/2019 or Microsoft 365 subscription (we’ll show you how to check that, below). The unlicenced product warning usually happens if you’ve started Office after a […]
Reversed Question Mark / Irony ⸮ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
How to insert the Reversed Question Mark / Irony ⸮ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Reversed Question Mark / Irony ⸮ symbol has been proposed to denote irony or sarcasm within text. Or for rhetorical questions. It’s never really caught on. The proper name […]
What Microsoft 365 Copilot can really do for you – not just the hype
Strip away the hype and vague promises for the upcoming Microsoft Copilot and see what these AI features can do for you. As regular Office Watch readers know, we prefer to talk about products we can use ourselves. Until we can do that, we’ve stripped away the considerable Copilot hype to show a little bit […]
Office gets Irish language or Faigheann MS Office an Ghaeilge
Irish Gaelic, Gaeilge or just Irish is available in Microsoft Word Translator and other translate services from Microsoft. Here’s how to download the Irish spell check and other proofing tools. Irish Gaelic is the first official language of the Republic. English is more commonly used and the second official language. Gaeilge is also recognised in […]
See the new Copilot to make PowerPoint decks – a sneak peek
An early peek at Microsoft Copilot, a new part of Microsoft 365 that’s so new it’s not yet available to “Insiders”. We’ll carefully look at Copilot in PowerPoint which can make a whole slide deck based on an existing Office document. The ever-reliable Walking Cat has leaked an image and video of Copilot, a ChatGPT […]
