The cheapest way to buy Microsoft Publisher
Microsoft Publisher is the ‘desktop publishing’ part of MS Office. It has many formatting options not available in Word and is useful for making marketing documents like brochures, catalogs etc. Publisher was somewhat forgotten because it was only in the high priced Microsoft Office bundles. That changed with arrival of Office 365 ‘subscriptions’. Office 365 […]
How Microsoft makes security problems worse for you
Microsoft puts corporate pride and weasel words ahead of their customers safety and security. Hackers take advantage of Microsoft’s patch release scheduled to release a virus as widely as they can in the days before fix was available. The Dridex security bug was known to Microsoft but they stubbornly stuck to their ‘Patch Tuesday’ schedule […]
Language support in Office for Iceland and other languages
The Washington Post tells of the troubles including less common languages like Icelandic in the next wave of technology. As Office nerds we immediately looked at how the Icelandic and other languages are supported in modern Office. There’s many language specific parts of Office, more than you might expect. Menus/Ribbon, Help, Spelling, Grammar, Thesaurus, Hyphenation, […]
Inside the Dridex banking Trojan
This latest hack into Microsoft Office is called the ‘Dridex Banking Trojan’ in most reports. It takes advantage of a newly discovered security bug in Microsoft Office. Here’s the hard details that are often overlooked in many reports. Microsoft has released patches to close the security breach but not before the hackers were able to […]
Maths Mystery solved with a little help from Microsoft Word
OK, we admit this story is a stretch but there’s a point behind the link between this interesting story, Microsoft Word and it’s PDF support. Thomas Royen is a retired statistician who has solved a long standing mathematical question. The Gaussian correlation conjecture (GCC) had beaten experts for years before Herr Royen comes along and […]
Docs.com vs OneDrive – what’s the difference?
After the recent docs.com scare we’ve had a few readers asking the basic questions: What is docs.com? What’s the difference between docs.com and OneDrive? In short, use OneDrive for all your cloud storage needs. Consider Docs.com, if you have a document that you’d like to share with the public or a wide group of people. […]
Why Office security patches should always be installed
An Office security breach, which was patched last year, is still being used to infect unpatched computers. Hacked documents using the vulnerability have been appearing in the last few weeks: SIMON WERNER GMBH – RFQ.doc ‘security instructions’ Visa.doc выписка.doc, 2017april.doc While the files have .doc extensions, they are really .rtf files. They all are variations […]
Keep the deleted Crayola color in your Office documents
One of the colors in the Crayola box is being dropped. Never fear, the color Dandelion can be part of your Office documents as can any other Crayola color. It’s not the same as the smell and feel of a Crayola crayon but it’s better than losing the color entirely. Dandelion is being removed from […]
The mistake in Microsoft’s ‘common grammar mistake’ list
As a publicity stunt, Microsoft published a list of common grammar mistakes made in Word. It’s strange that one of the listed mistakes is NOT detected even by the latest version of Microsoft Word. Office-Watch.com noticed this curiosity because we tested all Microsoft’s claims against their own Word software. We didn’t just copy the press […]
Safely using Docs.com
Even today, despite the public outcry, a document saved to docs.com will automatically be available to everyone. The privacy choices aren’t obvious and the ‘public’ default isn’t clear either. Here’s what you see when uploading to docs.com You have to click the ‘three dots’ menu button then scroll down a long list of options to […]
Protect your Docs.com account
If you’ve ever used http://docs.com it’s a good idea to check what’s saved there and what public access is set. Login with your Microsoft account (or other login) and check the list of saved documents (click on your name at top right. Depending on your wishes you can: Leave as ‘Public on the web’ Change […]
Oxford Comma costs $10 million but Word would not have helped.
The debate about the Oxford Comma continues with news that a Maine company has lost a court case for the lack of a vital extra comma. Oxford Comma is one of the lesser known grammar checks in Microsoft Word. Sadly, Word would not have warned of the problem and saved the millions. The court case […]
Video training help from Microsoft
Redmond has released more Office training videos to help newbie users. Get started with Office Intro to Office Basics Sign in to Office Get help and support Change your Office for Home password Change your Office 365 for Business password What is Office 365? What is Office 365? Get the most out of Office 365 […]
Get Office Picture Manager free!
Office Picture Manager, the much loved and simple image editor was dropped by Microsoft, but it’s still available. Picture Manager has some features that aren’t in Windows 10 to this day. Here’s how to get it for free. There are two ways to get Office Picture Manager (OPM). Both involve doing a custom installation of […]
Google Docs can default to Microsoft Office formats
The Google Docs apps have a useful option for making new documents, worksheets and presentations that are Microsoft Office compatible. JR Raphael at ComputerWorld pointed out the option in the Google Docs app for Android, we poked around to find the equivlalents in Google Sheets and Google Slides Under Settings there’s the choice to make Word […]
Operation BugDrop hackers use Word documents
CyberX Labs has identified Operation BugDrop, which uses Word document to attack targeted businesses and steal corporate information. They send emails to the business they want to raid that trick people into enabling macros. Opening the hacked document displays the Security Warning and ‘Enable Content’ button are real; created by Word. But the sincere looking […]
