Two new PowerToys useful for Office users
Two new Windows PowerToys are especially useful for many Microsoft Office users. One is a better way to type accented characters, the other grabs text from images. Quick Accent, Text Extractor and, to a lesser extent, Screen Ruler are all additions to the PowerToys collection that can be useful for Office users. PowerToys are available […]
Discover more in Microsoft Word’s Page Border feature
The in-built page border option in Microsoft Word has a lot more available than first appears. A little digging will discover a lot more possibilities for interesting edges to pages. We’ve already explained how to make a more flexible page border in Word that you can change to exactly fit your needs. In this article […]
Questioned Equal To ≟ in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
What is the Questioned Equal To ≟ symbol and how to type in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. ≟ is a question mark above an equals sign. It isn’t properly used in equations but can be useful to show an equation to be solved or […]
Three Microsoft Office function key alternatives
Function keys can be a hassle, specially on smaller laptop keyboards without a dedicated F key row. Happily there are two alternatives for Microsoft Office user plus another for both Windows or Mac generally. Many laptop users avoid the Function keys because they aren’t directly available on the keyboard. Instead you need to press the Fn […]
Show a Word style marked ‘Hide until used’.
Many inbuilt Word styles are hidden until they are used but there’s a way to force hidden styles to appear right away. The most obvious example of ‘Hide until used’ styles are the Heading styles. Word initially shows only the first three headings ‘Heading 1’, ‘Heading 2’ and (drumroll) ‘Heading 3’. Hidden away are Heading […]
Two ways to Find & Remove Hidden Text in Word
If you want to find then change or remove hidden text from your Word document, there are two ways to do it. Either reveal or find the hidden text OR use Word’s in-built Document Inspector. For a shorter document, you can use the Show/Hide button to see what’s hidden and delete it manually, but that […]
What’s really new in the latest Office Insiders
Microsoft has released the latest Office 365 for Windows software for Insiders. There’s only one truly new feature. Two other ‘features’ are really bug fixes! The Office Insider twitter feed promotes the latest Insiders release like this: It’s overstating things more than a bit as Microsoft’s own listing of changes confirms. ‘New’ Office toolbar There’s […]
Bring back the 90’s with online WordArt
Make an image using the original Microsoft Office WordArt designs, courtesy of some clever web work by Mike McMillan. Or use the better WordArt that’s still available in modern Microsoft Word. Does anyone miss the original WordArt from the 1990’s? Now you can get it back https://makewordart.com/ recreates, with scary detail, the look of early […]
The best way to make a Word page with black border
Microsoft Word has some simple but frankly inadequate options to make a sign or page with a thick black border. Office Watch shows you the best, most flexible option which is better than the official, direct features. Following the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, I was asked to make an appropriate sign for […]
Drop PowerPoint slides into Word documents
There are two ways to drop a PowerPoint slide into a Word document. A simple, one-time method or a slightly advanced but dynamic trick which lets the Word document slide change if the original slide is updated. A few months ago we showed how to add Excel worksheets into a Word document. This time we’ll […]
Two ways to find accented letters in Word
How to find words with or without accented characters in Microsoft Word. You might need to find both naïve and naïve or café and cafe. There are many options in Word Find or Advanced Find but not the choice to ‘ignore accented characters’ or ‘treat accented characters as if not accented’. (‘Find all word forms’ […]
Division ÷ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Type the Division ÷ symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Division ÷ symbol is an alternative to the / character. Made up of a dash and two dots. ÷ symbol isn’t recommended these days. It’s not universally known and mostly used to mark division […]
All about Diaeresis or Umlaut in Microsoft Word
How to typing words with a diaeresis or umlaut in Word for Windows, Mac, Apple or Android plus the shortcuts on Mac computers. They aren’t normally needed in English except some organizations that require diaeresis for words like: naïve coöperate reëlect Brontë Noël Noël Coward Or you might be typing in another language where the […]
Hiding stuff in Word, Excel and PowerPoint
We’ve completed our series on ‘Hidden’ options in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. How to hide text, images, cells, slides etc within documents. Hiding is a useful option and avoids deleting content that might be needed later. It lets you make a different version of a document/sheet/deck without the hassle of maintaining two very similar documents. […]
Automatically Update Document Styles in Microsoft Word
Deep in Microsoft Word is the choice “Automatically Update Document Styles“. What does that do and which documents are affected? There are several similarly worded options to do with ‘Style’ and ‘Automatic’ so let’s be clear … we’re talking about File | Options | Add-ins | Manage | Templates | Go | Templates and Add-ins […]
Apple command ⌘ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
The Apple command ⌘ symbol can be typed into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Apple command ⌘ symbol appears on Mac and iPad keyboards but only as a command option, not as a symbol to type. The ⌘ symbol predates Apple computers. It’s a ‘PLACE […]
