Arrived! The first Office bug fixes for 2021
Microsoft announced 83 security bug fixes for January 2021, the count is really 96 once you add the Edge browser patches from last week. At first look, it seems there’s only five Office related patches including two each for Word and Excel. It’s important to keep both Office and the underlying operating system patched. The […]
Better ‘Not Allowed’ red circle/line symbol with text
Continuing our series on the ‘Not Allowed’ symbol, let’s make a versions with text instead of a graphic or icon. Check out our article on Make a ‘Stop’ circle / diagonal symbol in Word, Excel & PowerPoint about creating, resizing and coloring the basic shape. Text in circle Instead of the usual symbol, let’s add […]
Great text & image ‘Not Allowed’ red circle/line symbols
Continuing our series on the ‘Not Allowed’ symbol, let’s make a version with text and graphic or icon. Check out our article on Make a ‘Stop’ circle / diagonal symbol in Word, Excel & PowerPoint about creating, resizing and coloring the basic shape. Better ‘Not Allowed’ red circle/line symbol with text has the basics of […]
Office Lens leaves Microsoft Store but lives on!
As we mentioned back in October, Office Lens has been dropped from the Microsoft Store but it’s not the end of Lens, far from it. Microsoft announced that the cloud services backing Lens features would be disabled from 1 January 2021. Only Office Lens for Windows 10 and Windows Mobile are affected. Saved documents retained […]
Nice variations for Stop shape in Word, Excel & PowerPoint
There’s plenty of scope for variations on the basic Not Allowed symbol (red circle with diagonal) using the tools in Microsoft Office. See Make a ‘Stop’ circle / diagonal symbol in Word, Excel & PowerPoint for how to insert the basic ‘Not Allowed’ shape and change to suit your needs. Line Direction The line across […]
Office Watch most popular articles of 2020
Well, that’s been an ‘interesting’ year for all of us <sigh> . Here’s some of the articles that have been popular with our worldwide audience over 2020. Getting more from online video calls With the global lockdown, Office Watch switched roles for a while and added lots of advice for online video calls. We’ve been […]
Editor look & feel changes coming in Word and Outlook
Microsoft has announced some changes to the Editor feature in Word and Outlook to improve access to spell-check and grammar tools. Look for these changes in upcoming releases of Word and Outlook for Windows and later for Mac. Many reports on these changes say that the Editor is a ‘new grammar checker’ in Word 365, […]
Pantone 2021 colors in your Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Pantone has announced not one but TWO ‘colors of the year’ for 2021 and, as usual, we’ll explain how to use those exact colors in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. The colors of 2021 are … Illuminating and Ultimate Grey As usual what’s more amazing than the color is the description that goes with the choice. […]
Synonyms in Word and, maybe, PowerPoint for the web
Word and PowerPoint online, the browser versions, now have the same Synonyms feature that’s in the Windows and Mac releases. Synonyms helps you vary your vocabulary by suggesting alternative (different, substitute, other ) words. If you’ve used Synonyms in Office for Windows or Mac, there’ll be no surprises in the browser version. Right-click on a […]
Get your Holiday ‘sweaters’ for Teams, PowerPoint & more
Microsoft has released some ‘sweater’ backgrounds for Christmas, Hannukah or anytime of year. The PNG images are intended as backgrounds for Teams calls but can be used anywhere. A PowerPoint slide, Word background, Zoom call background or whatever. Adding Virtual Background or blurred video to TeamsAdd your own background image to a Teams call They […]
2020/2021 Academic calendar in Microsoft Word
The only specific 2020/2021 calendar template in Microsoft Word is an academic calendar from August 2020 to July 2021, here’s how to use it and make it better. In File | New search for ‘academic calendar’ there are a few options. We’re looking at ‘Academic year calendar’. A few notes before moving on. Ignore what […]
New look in Microsoft 365 for Mac coming in early 2021
Microsoft 365 for Mac is getting a revamped look for the Home or Start menu in early 2021. Here’s all the new and old features in the Home pane or as Microsoft calls it “Office Start experience” (no kidding) The Home panel changes to be more consistent with what’s visible in Microsoft 365 for Windows […]
Here’s how Gmail can now edit Office docs directly
Google’s Gmail can now directly edit Microsoft Office documents arriving in email attachments. It’s available to all Gmail users, free and paid accounts. It removes a lot of the hassles of exchanging Office documents with Gmail and Google Docs/Sheets/Slides users. No more document conversion hassles … at long last! Email Attachments edited directly Any incoming […]
PowerPoint Outline tricks with Word
You don’t have to write directly onto each PowerPoint slide. Instead write an outline of headings and text, then convert into slides. There are two ways to do it, with Word or directly into PowerPoint. Outline View View | Outline View shows each slide title with bullet points within a slide. Slides can be made, […]
Beware MacOS backdoor hack with fake Word document
Mac computers aren’t immune to hacking and viruses. There’s a new backdoor infiltration out there posing as a Word document and directly targeting Macintosh computers. OceanLotus is interesting because it targets MacOS, trying to open a backdoor through which hackers can get data from Mac computers. Another noteworthy part of the hack is that the […]
Special offer for Microsoft 365 Business Premium or an even cheaper option
If you’re thinking about getting Microsoft 365 email hosting with full Teams and SharePoint, Microsoft has a limited time offer this week only. However, before you jump into their deal, there’s another very similar option that’s even cheaper. Until 30 November 2020, Microsoft is offering 25% discount on their Business Premium service for small businesses. […]
