Our great Office 2016 book is ready now
We’re delighted to announce that our champion Office 2016 ebook has been updated, yet again, to include new and added features for the main Windows version of Microsoft Office. A bit like Office itself, Office 2016: the real startup guide is updated to keep pace with the improvements in Office 2016 itself. As an ebook, […]
Office 2016 for Windows Store – a closer look
Microsoft has released another version of Office 2016 for Windows to be tested by insiders. This one is bought and installed from the Windows 10 Store. Naturally Office-Watch.com dived in to check it out. At the moment, only some Windows Insiders and users of Windows 10S can get Office in the Windows Store. Later this […]
Office 64-bit won’t work with MPEG-4 or QuickTime video
A hidden trap in the 64-bit versions of Microsoft Office 2016 or 2013, they can’t work with MPEG-4 video .mp4, audio .m4a, nor QuickTime .mov . If you’ve ever seen this error message: “PowerPoint cannot insert a video from the selected file. Verify that the necessary 64-bit codec for this media format is installed, and […]
Logitech’s new keyboard with special Word , Excel and Powerpoint controls
Logitech has a new Craft keyboard with a control wheel that works with Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It’s a high end keyboard that seems to have a lot of interesting points. Source for all images: Logitech It has more than one wireless connection, instead of the usual one. Either Bluetooth or Logitech’s own Unifying connector […]
Maths equation and LaTeX improvements in Word 2016
The Office 365 version of Word 2016 for Windows has some nice improvements to LatTex support. LaTeX is the maths boffins preferred way of writing formula in computer code for conversion into the symbols that confuse us mere humans. In Word 2016 (Windows, Office 365 users only), you can see some extras on the Equation […]
PowerPoint is 30 years old, can you believe it?
Can you believe it, PowerPoint is 30 years old? Originally called ‘Presenter’, in 1987 it was renamed to ‘PowerPoint’ by Robert Gaskins. Later in 1987, Microsoft bought the software out of petty cash (i.e. $14 million). 22 May 1990 was the first release of Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows, the birthday that Redmond officially recognizes. In […]
Office Championship winners 2017 – the full list
The Microsoft Office Championships are done for 2017 with talented young people from all over the planet among the winners. We have the full list of winners. The competition is for students 13-22 years with categories for Word, Excel and PowerPoint in 2013 or 2016 versions. Outlook, Access, Visio and Publisher don’t get a spot. […]
British Library images for your PowerPoint presentations
The British Library has a collection of over a million copyright free images for use in Word documents and PowerPoint presentations. They are on Flickr and a good place to start is the albums. A few that caught our eye are: Women of the World Illustrated Letters and Typography – perhaps for unique Drop Caps? […]
PowerPoint as your dating ‘wing man’
PowerPoint has been used for many things and how you can add romancing to the list. Twitter user @velzzb was asked for first date suggestions. As a helpful Microsoft Office user, he replied in the form of PowerPoint slides … as you do. For his trouble, he got blocked by the guy who asked! But […]
LibreOffice 5.4 has improved MS Office document compatibility
The free office suite, LibreOffice, has released with better Microsoft Office compatibility and a sly dig at their bigger rival. LibreOffice 5.4 has its own Open Document Format (.odt etc.) which is similar to Microsoft’s .docx format. LibreOffice can work with both formats. v5.4 has improvements in the Microsoft Office document compatibility. They’ve also streamlined […]
Make Microsoft Office speak or read aloud
Microsoft Office can read aloud, talk or speak the text of documents to you. It’s possible in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote. Computer speaking text is mainly suggested for various disabled users under the ‘Accessibility’ name. But ‘Speak’ is also useful if you’re just tired of reading the screen or are proof-reading from another […]
Get the hidden Office Mobile apps for Windows 10
The Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for Windows 10 computers are hiding from the Microsoft Store. Here’s how to get them. Word, Excel and PowerPoint have ‘mobile’ versions that run on Windows 10 devices for full PC’s, tablets and Windows phones. Here are the links you need, since Microsoft has hidden them. Word Excel PowerPoint […]
Get your free Office ebooks from Microsoft
Microsoft’s annual giveaway of ebooks is on again. Thousands of free downloads, including Office related ebooks. The full list is on the Microsoft blog. We’ve copied the Microsoft Office related titles into a easily searchable list below. Most are in PDF format with a few in MOBI (Kindle), EPUB or XPS format. Modesty (almost) […]
Translate your PowerPoint speech live to multiple languages
Microsoft’s test area ‘Garage’ has released a PowerPoint tool which promises to translate into multiple languages your speech to accompany a presentation. Presentation Translator translates your spoken remarks and posts them as subtitles on the slide deck. Source: Microsoft Source: Microsoft It does more than show subtitles on the big screen. Audience members can use […]
Office ‘Alt Text’ accessibility problems
Microsoft proudly added accessibility features to Office 2016 for Windows, in particular ‘Alt Text’. Pity it’s not been refined and fixed once the hype died down. Earlier this year, Microsoft added an ‘Alt Text’ feature to Office which tries to automatically suggest alternative text for visually impaired readers. Right click on an image and choose […]
New Privacy leakage in Office 2016 for Windows
Images inserted into your Word documents are being automatically uploaded to Microsoft for the accessibility ‘Alt Text’ feature. Even if the image and document are saved on your computer, not cloud storage. It’s a hidden ‘feature’ in Office 2016 for Windows desktop (Office 365 subscribers). Earlier this year, Microsoft added an ‘Alt Text’ feature to […]
