Getting an image into Office – not as simple as you’d expect
You’ve chosen an image, now you have to get it into your Office document. You’d hope there was a single way to do that but, as usual, there’s plenty of options. Outlook has its own special needs, different from Word, Excel and PowerPoint. There’s also privacy and image size issues to consider. The simple way […]
Highlights of Feb 2017 updates for Office 2016 and Office 2013
Here’s the complete list of non-security updates for Office 2016 for Windows and Office 2013 plus our notes on some bug fixes that caught our eye. As usual, these updates will be pushed to most Office computers automatically. No action is necessary. Unexpected Issues Microsoft is always using different words to avoid saying ‘bug’. This […]
First Word for Mac hack attack
It was only a matter of time, the first attack targeting Word for Mac has been released. It’s a simple, almost primitive hack, but it’s out there so beware. There even a ‘silver lining’ of sorts. The document is named U.S. Allies and Rivals Digest Trump’s Victory – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.docm but the […]
Public Domain images from ‘The Met’.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is the latest gallery to put many of their images into the public domain. Now you can, legally, use them to decorate your PowerPoint presentations or Word documents. The Met has released about 375,000 images under Creative Commons Zero CC0 licence. That means there are no rights […]
Office Touch Bar support is happening soon – 3 months late.
Microsoft announced Touch Bar support with much fanfare back in October 2016. Over 3 months later and paying customers are still waiting. There’s been lot of talk about this feature including web sites with ‘tips’ on using Office with the Touch Bar without noting that it’s not got into ‘insider’ beta testing yet. New Macbook […]
More on the Oxford Comma in Microsoft Word
To many people the Oxford Comma is an obscure grammar issue but, boy!, can it get people excited. We’ve had lots of messages, pro and con, from readers. This all started because Microsoft dropped one of the options available for the Oxford Comma check. In Office 2016 (Windows or Mac) you can’t get a warning […]
Oxford Comma differences between Word 2016 and earlier versions
A few years ago we had a close look at the Oxford Comma (‘Comma required before last item’, serial comma, Harvard Comma etc) in Word 2013. We’ll now repeat those tests with the new “Microsoft’s own” grammar system to see if there’s any improvement. Office-Watch.com has already noted that the options for the Oxford Comma […]
Grammar checking returns to Office 2016 for Windows
Microsoft has restored an important missing part of Word 2016 for Windows; the Grammar and Style checking! It’s available for all Word 2016 for Windows users including the ‘perpetual licence’ users who normally don’t get ‘new’ features. This important improvement hasn’t had the usual Redmond hype, presumably because it’s more embarrassing for Microsoft to admit […]
Comic Sans – the video
The saga of the Comic Sans font never ends. Like the font itself, stories about the font won’t die. Now we have “Comic Sans: The Man Behind the World’s Most Contentious Font” the video. Contentious is a polite word. Hated, Loathed, Despised, Reviled, Detested might be more accurate. It’s not a new story, we mentioned […]
Office Lens, at last it’s available for iPad
Office Lens, a way to convert pictures of documents or whiteboards into text is finally available for Apple iPads. Back in 2015 Office-Watch.com demonstrated some of the clever crop and rotation tricks in Office Lens, plus the ‘convert to text’ option shameless stolen from OneNote. Source: Microsoft Images can be saved to OneDrive, OneNote or […]
Word document danger installs a keylogger
There’s a new type of infected Office document that can bypass some protections and trick people into installing a keylogger on their computer. A keylogger is software that records each keypress and send it to a hacker. They can use that info to get your login details for many sites or software. What’s new is […]
Word for Mac – Focus view for reading
“Why doesn’t Word for Mac have a reading view like Word for Windows?” Clare C. Nottingham, UK? Word 2016 for Mac does have a variation on reading view. It’s similar to Word for Windows, but it’s renamed. Look for Focus on the View tab. Word for Windows has Read mode. Focus mode (as it was […]
New Office 2016/Win features near release
Microsoft has released a new version of Office 2016 for Windows to the ‘Slow’ insiders. This means Office 365 customers have more goodies to look forward to in coming months. You’ll need Office 2016 Version 1612 (Build 7628.2048) or above. The new features, as described by Microsoft are: View and restore changes in shared files: […]
Single Office security bug fix for Jan 2017
There’s very few security patches this month but the major fix is for Word 2016 for Windows. Alas, as usual, Microsoft tries to overwhelm with a lot of standard phrases leaving key questions unanswered. This months security flaw is similar to many others over the years. A hacked document can manipulate computer memory to allow […]
What is a Style in Word, Excel or Outlook?
A style is a collection of formatting choices combined under a single name. Any word or even a single letter has a collection of formatting settings as well. Font: size, color, bold/italic/underline/strikethrough/subscript/superscript, highlighting and more. Position: Left, Center, Right, Justified. List: bullet, numbering. Line Spacing, Borders, Background color and a lot more details. Instead of […]
Degrees, Money and other symbols in Office
a look at some commonly used characters used in Office but are missing from the standard keyboard. How to insert symbols on a ‘one-off’ basis or insert quickly for more commonly used characters. Degree mark for temperature. Has no special shortcut but you can make one (see below). Currency symbols. We have a quick way […]
