Add a background image to a page in Word
Add a background image to any page in a Word document instead of a solid color or pattern. Using a picture as the background for Word page isn’t as straight forward because the official or approved method doesn’t work very well. We’ll show you other Word features that work better (or at all). Most of […]
Eye of Horus 𓂀 symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook
Insert the Eye of Horus 𓂀 into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Eye of Horus 𓂀 is an Egyptian Hieroglyph symbolizing protection. According to Egyptian myth, Horus lost his left eye during his struggle with Seth, and it was restored by Hathor, symbolizing the process […]
Find and cite with Researcher in Word
The Researcher button on Word’s References tab lets you lookup information online and copy into a document with formatted but optional citation. It’s likely to dismay many teachers and lecturers. Researcher is a cloud service, only available in Word 365 for Windows and Mac. The Researcher pane is really a specialized Bing web search that […]
All the ☝Up pointing hands in Word and Office
Word and Office have several up “pointing hand” symbols available in some fonts. Here’s the Unicode options explained and shown with the codes and shortcuts to type them in Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook too. There are various Up pointing hand options in Unicode: Index – a pointing index finger with palm facing. Backhand Index – […]
Avoid embarrassing typing mistakes in Word
A slip of the typing fingers can be funny, insulting or embarrassing, turning an innocent word into a naughty one. There are features in Word to help avoid these mistakes which have improved over the years but they aren’t 100% reliable It only takes a single letter to turn an innocent remark into something quite […]
Word Bug: Headings Inside Tables Go Missing
A long-standing bug in Microsoft Word quietly breaks your document navigation when you place Heading styles inside a table. The Table of Contents shows all your headings correctly, but the Navigation Pane silently drops any heading that lives inside a table cell. The same broken behavior ripples into PDF Bookmarks and the Insert Link dialog. […]
2001 A Space Odyssey – in Word and PowerPoint
As long time space and SF nerds, Office Watch can’t resist putting the look of 2001: A Space Odyssey into Word documents and PowerPoint slides. We’ll show you how to make a ‘close match’ using just the fonts and features in Microsoft Office. We’ll also explain the details behind that choice and some alternatives, both […]
Why Windows Character Map is better than Office
Character Map is a Windows feature that’s very useful for Microsoft Office users. It lets you insert symbols and, importantly, find them which is not possible within apps like Word. Windows Character Map has been around for as long as we’d like to remember and it’s mostly done right. If only the equivalent in Office […]
Free color selector in your browser
Google has a color selector among the many features in their home page. It’s free, works in any browser and it’s easy to copy color codes into Office. Search for ‘Color picker’ or https://www.google.com/?q=color+picker then move the two circles to choose the exact color and shade you want. The HEX and RGB color codes are […]
Easy Table of Figures in Word
Microsoft Word can generate a list of all the images, graphs, tables or equations in a document – called a Table of Figures. Just like a table of contents, this list can include page references or links to each figure or picture. A Table of Figures can be useful for creating a proper appendix of […]
Automatic Capitalization fixes in Word
Word has settings to automatically change the case of words that you type, fix common capitalization typing problems add items of your own to have capitalized the way you want them as you type. Word also has options to manually Change Case in Microsoft Word. The settings are in the AutoCorrect dialog at File | […]
Where are Word styles saved – document or template
Styles can be saved in a Word document but are most effective when saved in a template. Changing the style in a template will affect any document that uses the same template. At the bottom of the Modify Style dialog are two choices for where to save the style. Microsoft has reworded the choices to […]
Law & Order title card in PowerPoint and Word
Here’s how to make a lookalike for the Law & Order TV show title card in either PowerPoint or Word. Last week we showed how to make the Law & Order opening screen image and how to use that look in slides or documents. Many readers asked why Office-Watch.com didn’t do the main title card. […]
Law & Order titles and sound in PowerPoint and Office
One way to open a PowerPoint presentation could be to copy the opening of the Law & Order TV shows. Here’s how to get the same look in your PPT slides or Word documents plus the distinctive sound. The same formatting can be used in Word, maybe as a callout to highlight some text. But […]
Free and secure conversion of .doc .xls or .ppt to the newer Office formats
Here’s how to convert an older .doc .xls or .ppt into a safer and smaller .docx .xlsx .pptx even if you don’t have Microsoft Office. Any smart computer user is wary of documents received in the old .doc .xls .ppt formats because they are regularly used to transmit viruses. The new document formats are much […]
Adding Footnotes to Pictures in Word
How to add footnotes just below a photo in Microsoft Word The trick is similar to adding Footnotes to a Word table. Use Endnotes, instead of Footnotes (assuming you don’t use Endnotes elsewhere in the document). Add a Continuous Section Break and change the Endnotes settings to put them at the end of the section. […]
