Office 2021 is the personal and small business ‘perpetual licence’, non-subscription version of Microsoft Office. For Windows and Mac.
Office LTSC (Long Term Servicing Channel) is the volume licence ‘perpetual licence’, non-subscription version of Microsoft Office for organizations, companies and governments. Also for Windows and Mac.
The features in Office 2021 and Office LTSC are very similar, if not the same.
All about Safe mode in Microsoft Office
Safe Mode is a special way for Office apps to run when things aren’t working properly. Here’s how to use Safe Mode, if Office doesn’t offer it automatically, and what Safe Mode does differently. Safe Mode is useful in situations where you cannot open files in normal mode because the app is crashing, or you […]
Fixed: Outlook bug showing restore items dialog
Microsoft has fixed a bug in Outlook for Windows which wrongly popped up the notice “Outlook closed while you had items open. Reopen those items from your last session?” When Outlook closes with items open (email, appointment etc.), it should offer to reopen those items when Outlook next starts. The message looks like this: Outlook […]
How Excel’s hidden CalcChain can catch data cheats
There’s a hidden part of Excel which can be used to catch ‘data cheats’ or people who tweak workbooks to get the results they want. There’s a news story about research into honesty, the academic is being accused, ironically, of dishonesty in their findings. The Professor is suspected of tampering with source data to change […]
Use a Hidden Registry Hack to Improve Your Privacy with Microsoft Office
Use a hidden registry hack to protect your privacy by reducing the amount of private info Microsoft Office apps send to Microsoft. Dr Aleksandar Milenkoski, working for the German Federal Office for Information Security, has produced a report on what information Microsoft Office software sends back to the company. That’s information about when and how Office […]
Stethoscope 🩺 emoji in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
How to insert the Stethoscope 🩺 symbol/emoji into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Trivia: the stethoscope was invented by a Frenchman who was embarrassed putting his ear upon a lady’s chest to hear her heartbeats. His original was a simple tube, not the dual-ear device we […]
Bharat or Bhārat (India) in Microsoft Word
The alternative name for India is Bhārat and that term is now being used, somewhat controversially, by the government. How does Microsoft Word handle “Bharat” and what are your choices for either using the word or not. Even if you’re not interested in the name change, it’s a practical lesson in what’s possible in the […]
Listen to free audiobooks from Microsoft and Project Gutenberg
Microsoft and Project Gutenberg have joined to create thousands of audiobooks for free, using modern ‘text to speech’ technology that’s amazingly good. And we have some tips on how to create audiobooks with more variety in voice, accent and pace. Since 1971, Project Gutenberg has compiled a wide range of copyright free ebooks in many […]
Discover Office Keyboard Shortcuts in Windows 11 and 10
There are some keyboard shortcuts to open or switch to Office apps in Windows 11 and Windows 10, if you have enough fingers! They are all based around the Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Win combo plus a letter. That might seem like a keyboard shortcut for an octopus but it makes a little […]
Microsoft fixes a big hassle with Excel’s great Lambda()
Microsoft has fixed the big hassle that comes with the otherwise excellent Lambda() feature in Excel 365 with the new Advanced Formula Environment. Office Watch has sung praises over the power that Lambda brought to Excel. It’s the ability to write custom functions within Excel but without VBA macros. Proper IDE for Excel formulas But […]
Copying images from Designer to Office documents
Unfortunately, copying an image made in Designer isn’t as simple as it should be. Here’s how to grab images made with Designer to use in your own Office documents. Don’t wait, start using Microsoft Designer now It’s easy to paste an image into Designer. Just copy the image from your app (like Word or PowerPoint), […]
Two Excel workarounds for automatic refresh and recalculation
There are two ways to make Excel automatically refresh data connections and recalculate a worksheet. These tricks are important with the Stock and Currency data type in Excel 365 but also other situations. Normally Excel will update itself when you change a cell value. These days there are situations where cells change value but Excel does […]
Gun 🔫 emoji in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Insert the Water Pistol or Gun emoji 🔫 into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. AND how to make the ‘gun’ point to the right. Water Pistol 🔫 symbol is the only ‘gun’ style symbol in the emoji collection. It’s officially called ‘Water Pistol’ but searching […]
Ten ways to Reverse, Mirror or Flip Text in Microsoft Word
There are at least ten ways to ‘reverse’ ‘mirror’ or ‘flip’ text or images in a Word document. Horizontal, vertical, reversed, combined or any angle you like. When people say those terms they can mean different things so we’ll look at many options and how to do them. Also along a curve, but that’s a […]
PowerPoint linking to slides – now hidden but still there
Modern PowerPoint has made an ‘improvement’ to slide linking in PowerPoint which hides an important feature that’s been in PPT for years … linking to slides or web pages. Sometimes Microsoft gets so enthusiastic about some innovation they forget the basics that customers use on a daily basis. Insert | Link in PowerPoint is one […]
Surprise! Office 2021 & Office 2019 has the all Aptos fonts
An undocumented surprise for Office 2021 and Office 2019 customers. The new Aptos fonts are automatically installed in Office 2021/Office 2019 even though Microsoft insists they are for Microsoft 365 only. However, there’s a crucial difference and strange anomaly between how Aptos fonts work in Office 2021/2019 vs Microsoft 365. According to Microsoft the Aptos […]
Make Cloud Fonts available to all programs, not just Office
Microsoft 365 / Office 2021 Cloud Fonts are only available in Office programs … that’s the official line unless you know the trick to make the fonts available in other Windows or Mac apps Cloud Fonts can be selected and installed for Word 365/2021, Excel 365/2021, PowerPoint 365/2021, Outlook 365/2021 and Publisher 365/2021. You might […]