What Microsoft euphemistically calls ‘gaps’ in the beta release of the New Outlook should really be called ‘enormous chasms’ of missing features and core functions. Let’s look at what Microsoft admits is missing plus other obvious omissions. As the supposedly ‘new’ features of the New Outlook are being hyped, these
Type the fun Otter 🦦 emoji into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Otter 🦦 emoji represents a light-brown otter (a member of the weasel family) on its back with its paws held together. But the emoji can just be used
OneNote is finally getting the Office Dictation (speech to text) feature that’s already in other Office programs. That’s in addition to the long-standing Look for Dictation in OneNote for Windows Home tab, way off at the right-side. Also, in OneNote in a web browser … Dictation and Read Aloud in
A first look at the new “New Outlook” which Microsoft (deliberately?) leaked ahead of an official announcement. It’s interesting but with one major and very disappointing omission. This article has been updated now “New Outlook” (as it’s now called) has been released to Office 365 Insider users. As you can
There are two ways to try New Outlook — either as a Office 365 Insider on the beta track or direct download (Intel and ARM based devices). Here’s how to do it and the hidden ‘gotchas’. Beware the New Outlook because it’s VERY crippled. Only Microsoft hosted commercial or education
Let’s look at the good or at least interesting parts of the New Outlook that Microsoft are calling ‘new’. As we’ll explain, Loop Components, fast @document links, My Day, Board views, RSVP options, pinned messages and Sweep aren’t really new. We’ve already noted the severe limitations in New Outlook, core
Microsoft has released a new Outlook for Windows which is so limited that we feel it’s necessary to warn people about trying to use it. Beware! Even for Insiders on the ‘beta’ channel this new Outlook is no replacement for the real Windows version of Outlook – not even close.
There are two different ways to access a Microsoft Office document that’s saved on OneDrive. We’ll explain both and why it’s sometimes important. Microsoft’s OneDrive stores documents on servers. Programs (like Office) can open those files directly from the cloud service. Or the OneDrive app can copy (synchronize) files from
Excel doesn’t automatically number lists but there are at least six ways to add numbering depending on your needs and how the list appears. Numbering is important but can be annoying when you’ve got a large dataset. If it’s small, it’s easy to number it manually or by an auto-filling
Add the Duck 🦆 emoji into Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Duck 🦆 emoji represents the quacky bird with webbed feet. The emoji is usually depicted as a Mallard. Sometimes used as a substitute for the f-word, because of iPhone’s tendency
A simple question – what characters can you put in an email address? Like many things to do with the Internet the answer isn’t as simple or direct as you might think. We’ll look at what makes a valid email address, both in theory and in practice. A simple question
Excel 365 for Windows is getting three performance boosts that you might not notice but speed up your work on less powerful computers. All these Excel 365 for Windows tweaks are designed for what Microsoft politely calls “resource-constrained devices”. That means: CPUs with two cores or less 8GB of RAM
What are the real words for really big numbers, waaay over a trillion? Does Microsoft Word’s dictionary recognize them? (Answer: most but not all and there’s even a spelling mistake in Word!). How many is a billion anyway? We’ve looked at the informal words for vague large numbers such as
A small but important change is coming to Word mobile app for iPhone, iPad or Android. You’re able to continue listening to a ‘Read Aloud’ document from the lock screen. At the moment, Word will stop reading a document to you if the lock screen is enabled (usually because there’s
Does Office 2021 or Office 2019 insist on a Microsoft account Sign-In (login) to use the software and edit documents? We’ve done some tests to check and we’ll explain the details too. It’s a good question. Microsoft 365 software does require a Microsoft account login but what about the ‘perpetual
Office apps in a browser have caught up with an important feature in Office 365 for Windows – quick account switching is now available. Almost three years ago, Microsoft added quick account switching to Office 365 for Windows. You can save logins to several Microsoft 365 accounts; work, school, home
Like Word, PowerPoint and Excel also have options to add borders to pictures to add that extra oomph to your work. Users can choose between fairly simple borders or add some further complex, fancy styles to their images. If all this seems very familiar, it’s because the same picture tools
Type the Grinning Cat with Smiling Eyes 😸 emoji into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Grinning Cat with Smiling Eyes 😸 emoji is a variant of the grinning face emoji or the cat face emoji, which is yellow on most
There are a couple of email preview options in Outlook. These include the Message Preview and using the Reading Pane (once called the Preview Pane). We’ll explain them in detail including how to turn these features on and off plus viewing attachments in the Reading Pane. Message Preview Message Preview
We’ve seen many cheap Microsoft Office 365 Family, Personal and other plans sold as ‘lifetime’, ‘perpetual’ or ‘never-ending’. It’s all lies. Some deals are obviously scams, like this one for just US$3 but others have more plausible prices. They are priced just under the regular street price to seem like
The Windows Emoji Panel has its problems which are amply demonstrated by a common symbol that’s hiding in the long symbol lists – the Pi symbol 𝜋 . We’ll explain where it’s hiding and generally grumble about this part of Windows 11 and 10. The Emoji Panel is in Windows
Microsoft has changed the way they rollout new features in Microsoft Office 365 which can lead to confusion and frustration, especially among the Insiders who try out new stuff before it reaches the public. In olden days (say 2018) getting new or changed features was simply a question of having
There’s a small but important point about Microsoft Word with Footnotes and Endnotes. It’s so important we’ve made this separate little article about copying or moving. The footnote or endnote is stored in that little superscript character in the document text. Copy, move or delete that superscript character and the
If Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) is misbehaving, try the Repair option. If that’s also causing trouble, there’s a hidden command prompt option. For any ‘Click to Run’ installations of Office for Windows (mostly Microsoft 365, Office 2019) there are Repair options available to fix common problems. Among these