Word online has a simple, quick way to add emphasis and a little engaging styling to text you’d like to highlight. It’s only in Word online but can be used in other versions of Word. It’s called ‘Visual Emphasis’ and is only available in the browser-based version of Word. At
Meta has joined the ‘text to image’ AI race with Imagine. Here’s how to use it to make interesting pictures quickly and bypass its current limits. There are so many AI tools out there, in particular ‘text to image’ makers, Microsoft has ‘Generate Image’ in Designer and a separate Image
Excel Labs has just added a nice formula Debug option that helps you understand the steps inside a formula and fix errors. There are already three ways to look inside a formula; Evaluate Formula, F9 to calculate part of a formula and the recent Visual Preview. Now Microsoft’s Excel Labs
There are two important changes coming to Get & Transform (Power Query) in Excel. Both changes are probably already covered by the current setup but you should check any external data links now to avoid an unwanted surprise. These changes apply from 11 March 2024. Microsoft is a little vague
Microsoft Designer has secret key shortcuts to quickly insert shapes and text boxes without jumping to the side menus. All you need to do is press a single letter key to insert one of these shapes: R – Rectangle (inserts a square) C – Circle L – Line T –
Microsoft messed about with Notes and Comments in Excel 365. Here’s what’s happened, name changes, overlapping functionality and how Excel has gone from ‘Notes’ to ‘Comments’ and now back to ‘Notes’ again! There are now two different ways to add text notes or comments into an Excel 365 cell. The
Here are three ways to add an explanation or note within an Excel formula itself, instead of separate notes. The ‘Achilles Heel’ of Excel or any spreadsheet program has always been explaining or commenting of cell formulas. Adding comments is an important part of any code including Excel’s VBA but
Here’s a far better way to view and edit formulas in Excel than the small formula bar. It’s a free add-in from Microsoft’s Excel Labs called Advanced Formula Environment (AFE) Understanding Excel formulas can be difficult, even ones you’ve written yourself. Imagine trying to work with a monster formula like
Pantone’s color of the year for 2024 is “Peach Fuzz”. You can use that exact color in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Designer using the Hex/RGB color code. And we’ll look at the flowery prose that’s become a hallmark of this annual promotion. The color of 2024 is … Peach
The Microsoft 365 browser extra for Edge and Chrome is being ‘retired’ from January 2024 though not for any good or explained reason. Maybe it’s because Microsoft’s Edge browser has an in-built alternative? From 15 January 2024, there’ll be no more updates or support for the Microsoft 365 browser extension.
In Microsoft Word, you can use keyboard or mouse shortcuts to select characters, words, lines, paragraphs, and blocks of text faster. Here are ten different selection tricks that Word experts know to speed up their work. Select a Sentence Highlight an entire sentence in Word by simply holding down the
Excel’s web version now has some better ways to insert functions direct from the function search window. Also easily see the open/close bracket pairs. Insert Function ‘wizard’ Insert Function has expanded into a little ‘wizard’ (remember those?) after finding the function, a second pane lets you insert parameters with some
Designer in PowerPoint 365 is great, but it can be too pushy and intrusive with the Design Ideas pane popping up too much. Designer risks becoming the new ‘Clippy’! Here’s how to stop Designer appearing until you want it. PowerPoint Designer suggests slide designs based on the content. It’s a
PowerPoint Designer and Design Ideas is the start, not the end, of making a great looking presentation. Some simple changes will make something unique and not obviously copied from Microsoft’s template supply. We’ll show how to dig into the Design Ideas to change individual slide elements a little, or a lot. Not familar with
PowerPoint Designer should just be the start of making a great looking presentation. A few manual adjustments will transform Microsoft’s automated suggestions into something awesome and unique. All the design helpers in PowerPoint and Office have the same problem. Everyone uses them and so a lot of slides or docs end up
PowerPoint’s Designer suggestions work better if you add some words to the slide first. If you add some broad keywords or title, it gives Designer clues for the most appropriate look. Designer uses the text to choose from the many templates available. The words don’t have to appear in the
PowerPoint Designer is perhaps the most interesting and useful feature in PowerPoint 365. It turns a basic slide into something eye-catching. Here’s how to use Design Ideas effectively and wisely. It’s a very quick and easy way to take a couple of Design Elements and create a full-blooded Custom Style for
Google has more than 3,000 Icons available to add into Microsoft Office documents from either SVG files or a font. Material Symbols are a collection of small icons, much like the Icons available in modern Office. As SVG files they can be recolored and changed from their standard black line
Word Designer is a really fast way to reformat a document into something very interesting and professional. Here’s how to use it properly and add extra tweaks to make your Word doc look really great. All these documents were transformed from a plain document with a few clicks. Word Designer
Add the Croissant 🥐 emoji into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. I have to declare a personal interest in this article because the Croissant 🥐 is an essential part of my breakfast. No morning is complete without the “Three C’s”
Office for Windows and Mac has three special outline styles for the borders of shapes and text boxes. Called ‘Sketched’ or ‘Sketchy‘ because they have a hand-drawn line look. It’s a nice little addition to Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook. Let’s see how it works plus some details and limitations
Microsoft Office Icons and other SVG graphics can be improved a lot simply with Sketchy or Sketched lines. They turn an icon or graphic from something formal into a hand-drawn and casual look. Sketchy lines is the ‘hand-drawn’ line option available in Microsoft 365 for Windows or Mac plus Office
Get more from Microsoft Office Icons, Illustrations, Cartoon People and other SVG graphics by turning them into Office Shapes which opens up many more options for editing and recoloring the graphic. That includes ‘splitting’ a single graphic into parts that can be changed separately. Microsoft 365, Office 2021, 2019 and
Word has some quick ways to turn a plain document into something fantastic. All it takes is a few clicks on the Design tab to change the overall look, fonts and colors. And we’ve added tips to fix formatting that doesn’t change. Let’s start with a very plain version of
