Cross of Lorraine ☨ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Type the Cross of Lorraine ☨ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Cross of Lorraine ☨ symbol was originally a heraldic cross. In more recent times it was used in the global distribution systems, Sabre, Apollo, and Wordspan, as a delimiter in a variety of input […]
Word’s =Rand() around the World
=Rand.old() is a Word trick which adds common sentences that use all, or most, of the letters in that language’s alphabet. Here’s what Word does in English, French, German, Danish, Polish and many other languages. It’s useful filler text for testing formatting or other Word features just like “Lorem Ipsum …”. The sentence changes for […]
Get more from Mark Index features in Microsoft Word
Behind the simple Mark Index feature in Word are some useful but almost hidden options. These give you many choices for making and formatting your document index. Getting started with indexes in Word? Check out our starter, Simple Indexing in Microsoft Word. Indexes are as much art and judgment as science so there’s always room […]
Easter Bunnies and more in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint etc.
Yes, there are bunnies and other secular Easter graphics waiting for you in Microsoft 365 and Office 2019. Icons and Illustrations (both types of SVG) have some Easter or at least bunny related graphics. Stock Images also have some choices. Religious choices are missing but there are Christian or Latin Crosses available in Office. Here’s […]
Hidden picture info in your Office documents
The BBC has a ‘long read’ about hidden information inside almost all photos. Office Watch has talked about this problem many times before including how the extra image data hides in Microsoft Office documents, despite the ‘Document Inspector’. It’s too easy just to think of an image as just what you see on the screen […]
Quickly make Word Indexes with concordance or AutoMark
A more efficient way to mark index entries in Microsoft Word is with a concordance or AutoMark file. It’s a separate document with a table of words to be found in the document coupled with their index entries. See Simple Indexing in Microsoft Word for an intro to Word’s indexing features. Concordance or AutoMark? The […]
Simple Indexing in Microsoft Word
We’re going to talk about creating indexes in Microsoft Word. ‘Real’ books often have an index at the back which Word can create for you. An index is a list of terms or topics that can be found within the document. Microsoft Word has the ‘fixings’ to make an index and automatic options to take […]
How we made the ‘Adjust your monitor’ sign
Re-creating the “Don’t be a Spock” sign in Word wasn’t hard especially since the original sign seen at the laboratory was probably made in Microsoft Word. Here are some comments on the design. The standard Arial font was used throughout. The two images and captions are in a 2 x 2 cell table with spacing […]
The case of the missing file extension
You’ve received a document, but when you try to open it, the file stubbornly won’t appear! We explain how to fix it. Our editor-in-chief saw that problem in an Internet cafe‚ in Ketchikan, Alaska and was surprised when neither the manager of the store nor the cruise computer ‘expert’ knew the answer. As you probably know, […]
Black Right Pointing index ☛ symbol in Office
How to insert the Black Right Pointing index ☛ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Black Right Pointing index ☛ symbol can be used for pointing a direction on a sign or as a different bullet symbol. There’s also a similar, lesser known symbol Black […]
Microsoft 365 cloud outages, what happened and what you can do
Another bad week for Microsoft’s customers who rely on the Microsoft 365 hosting and other cloud technologies. There were global outages for more than half a day in Teams, Azure, Xbox Live and many other Microsoft Cloud services. All should be restored by the time you read this but there are still questions about what […]
Right-click menus now in Office for iPad
The Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for iPad are getting right-click menus when there’s a external mouse or trackpad connected. It’s a good move with more iPads being used with separate keyboard & mouse as a mini-PC. Sadly the new menus aren’t all they could be. Right-click (Microsoft calls a ‘secondary click’) on an image […]
Three sources for an X in Word or PowerPoint
Where can you find an X symbol to overlay (or go under) text as used in Three ways to overlay X on text in Word ? As usual in modern Office, there’s plenty of choices available either within the product or from elsewhere. Icons Office 365 and Office 2019 apps have Icons, actually SVG graphics. […]
Three ways to overlay X on text in Word
It’s easy to overlay an X over a letter or word in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, once you know the tricks and alternatives available in Office. An overlaid X is an alternative to strikethrough. It works better on large text or signs. There are at least three different ways to get the X overlay effect. […]
Broken Vertical Bar ¦ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Type the Broken Vertical Bar ¦ in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Broken Vertical Bar ¦ symbol was sometimes used in computing. These days there’s no specific use for the broken vertical bar but it’s good to keep in mind as a design alternative to […]
Dictation updates in Office 365 for Mac
Microsoft has added new features and interface to Dictation in Word for Mac. Voice commands, auto punctuation and even a !@$#$ profanity filter. It’s almost the same as Dictation in Word 365 for Windows. A different shortcut key ‘tis all. Clicking the Dictation button on the Home tab or pressing Option + F1 now opens […]
