Reveal Hidden Characters and Word’s secrets with Show All
If you are working on a Word document with complex formatting, sometimes you need to see the hidden characters and unseen workings. It helps figure out Word’s secrets or what’s going on when the layout doesn’t behave. That’s where ‘Show All’ becomes essential. Microsoft Word was designed to hide all the formatting and technicalities (WYSIWYG). […]
Changing Caption look in Word or hiding captions completely
The appearance of all your captions in Microsoft Word can be changed by modifying the style that is applied to them or selecting the text and formatting manually. See Adding Captions in Word Caption Style All captions use the ‘Caption’ style, so modifying that style will modify the format of all past and future captions. Style […]
Adding Captions in Word
Captions let you add autonumbered labels under most Word objects including pictures (figures), tables or equations. Captions can be combined into a list of all the figures/tables/equations in the document, along with their page numbers. As usual in Word, there are many options beyond the simple adding of captions and some ‘gotchas’ as well. See Changing […]
Three ways to add EPS graphics into Microsoft Office
Three ways to insert or import an EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) graphic into Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. There are two a ‘quick and dirty’ options and a way that allows some editing. Microsoft Office did support EPS files for many years but dropped them in 2017/2018 because the EPS format is a security risk. EPS […]
Four SVG editing choices for Office 365/2019/2021
There are four different ways to change an Office icon or SVG graphic in Microsoft 365, Office 2019 or Office 2021. The two official SVG edit methods in Microsoft Office with their in-built limitations or some choices before inserting into Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Within Office Limited SVG/Icon changes are available from the Graphics Tools […]
Make simple changes to SVG graphics
Some simple changes to SVG graphics can bypass some of the more annoying limits of SVG support in Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Office 2019/365. Here’s a simple SVG with three parts: the circle <circle> the rectangle <path id=”bar” …> letters are defined in other <path … > and <use …> statements. In this article […]
Align Page vs Align Margin in Word
What’s the difference between aligning to a page and align margin in Word documents? Quite often, there’s no practical difference between ‘Align Page’ and ‘Align Margin’ in Word. These options appear when positioning an object on a page and other places. Centering an object has to be done compared to some defined ‘edge’ of a […]
Side-by-Side Translation in Word
How to show original text and a translation side by side in Word. The recent versions of Word have had an in-built translation feature that, like so many things in Microsoft Office, doesn’t quite go far enough. The basics are simple enough. On the Review tab there’s a Translate button. Click on that to translate […]
Changing RTF away from Word
How can you change the default program for .RTF documents away from Word and make it stick? We’ve talked about the virus security risk of Rich Text Format .RTF files which even Microsoft has, at times, suggested blocking. Despite that, .RTF files are associated to Word during the Office installation. The modern installer doesn’t give […]
Changing Text Box backgrounds in Office
There are two ways to make a text box transparent in Office; Word, Excel or PowerPoint. There’s a quick option and other that gives you some more control. The Word, Excel or PowerPoint ‘Text Box’ feature is presented as a way to have ‘pull quotes’ or sidebar text in your documents however it can do […]
What the RTF? Using RTF docs in Word
What is an RTF document, is it safe, how to use in Microsoft Word and why is it still being used? “I’m looking for a job and many employers are asking for my resume in RTF format. How do I do that and why can’t I just use a Word document?” Ian G. RTF (Rich Text […]
Why Canon says to ignore its own printer warnings
A shortage of computer chips has forced Canon to come clean and admit their warnings about counterfeit ink cartridges aren’t that serious. Now they have to tell customers to ignore those warnings and keep on printing. For a long time printer makers have tried all manner of tricks to convince customers to only buy their […]
Add the Year of the Tiger into Word, PowerPoint and Office
2022 is the Chinese year of the Tiger. Here are some tiger images, emoji and graphics in Word, PowerPoint and Office apps. Drop any of these into your documents or slides for a little New Years fun. See our related article Make your Chinese New Year graphics pop with these Office tricks to change these […]
Make your Chinese New Year graphics pop with these Office tricks
There are simple and traditional color choices for Chinese New Year graphics and text plus some Microsoft Office graphics tricks to make them look a lot better in Word and PowerPoint. Simple design done in a few moments with just the icons and tools in Word 365 or PowerPoint 365. Looking for 2022 New Year […]
Identical To ≡ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Insert the Identical To ≡ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Identical To ≡ symbol, also known as the triple bar, is a mathematical symbol. The three lined symbol means that something is identical or like another value, but this does not mean that is […]
Add the missing Draw with Touch option to Office
Here’s how to force the ‘Draw with Touch’ button to appear in Word, Excel and PowerPoint when it doesn’t show up automatically. ‘Draw with Touch’ is an Office option to let you draw with a finger or stylus on a touchscreen. It should automatically appear on the right of the Draw tab with a touch-enabled […]
