How to see which language is set in Word. When you have a multi-lingual Word document, you can see the current language on the status bar below the document – but changing the language is another matter. You can add a language selector to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) like this: You can use this […]
A free way to show Microsoft Office help in other languages Office Screentips is a way to show tooltips for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and other programs. This free addon from Microsoft doesn’t interfere with how the programs work or the wording of the tabs and ribbons. Only the tooltips that appear when you hover […]
How to find your pictures to insert into an Office document. Even a simple thing like adding a picture to an Office document or email has subtleties and annoyances. When you choose Insert | Picture in recent versions of Office, it opens, by default, in the Picture Library. That seems sensible, at least to Microsoft. […]
Making Windows Explorer’s Recent Places feature a whole lot better. Recent Places shows the folders you can recently visited in Windows Explorer. By default it’s in the Favorites section. Unfortunately the standard Recent Places view isn’t a lot of help: The Type and Size columns are irrelevant because they will always be ‘Shortcut’ and a […]
Get Outlook to show changes in Dropbox folders Dropbox has one excellent feature, the ‘Events’ view that lists files added, deleted or modified. You can use that feature to get custom Outlook alerts when certain things happen to your Dropbox account, like when a file is added to a shared folder. That list can be […]
How to get a message when certain RSS feeds are updated As you probably know, it’s possible to get an alert or an action when certain email messages arrive into Outlook using the Rules feature. Office-Watch.com shows how to do the same thing for an RSS feed. It will let you filter down a larger […]
A fully updated book now available at the same low price. We’re delighted to say that we have a new, updated ebook Windows 8.1 for Microsoft Office users. The book has been fully revised for Windows 8.1 with these extras added: Updating to Windows 8.1 advice Setup for Office / desktop users Start Menu .. […]
What can you do with a file attachment that has no file extension? Sometimes you get a file, probably an email attachment, that has no file extension. Without something after the dot/period (.doc .docx .xlsx .pptx etc.) Windows doesn’t know what program to use. This is most likely to happen with files sent from Mac […]
Choosing and mixing cloud storage options for file send and sync. Office-Watch.com received some great feedback after our features on sharing files with Dropbox or Skydrive. Some readers pointed out other cloud storage services like BOX which offers 10GB free and has real-time updates on downloads etc. Strangely, no-one mentioned Google Drive which offers 15GB […]
Upload photos automatically from smartphones. One of the features of Skydrive/OneDrive is the ‘Camera Roll’ or ‘Camera Backup’, it’s a simple and automatic way to copy photos between some devices. Is it ‘Camera Roll’ or ‘Camera Backup’? Microsoft uses both terms, depending on where you look. Most commonly from your smartphone (Apple or Windows) to […]
How to recover deleted files in OneDrive. Skydrive/OneDrive retains deleted files for 30 days or until the Recycle Bin exceeds 10% of your allowed storage space. This feature works much the same way as the Recycle Bin in Windows and it’s called ‘Recycle Bin’ down on the bottom left of the web page. Select a […]
Sync your OneDrive folders automatically The free Skydrive/OneDrive program is available for Windows and Mac. Windows 8.1 users don’t need OneDrive software because it’s ‘baked into’ the operating system itself. It will synchronize your cloud storage with local folders, saving you the hassle of manually uploading/downloading each file. All the file transfers happen in the […]
A simple guide to sending files via Skydrive / OneDrive There are many ways to send files that are too big for email (usually over 20MB). In this article we’ll look at how to do that with Skydrive. Skydrive, soon to be called, OneDrive is Microsoft’s public cloud storage service. Microsoft Office 2013 and Windows […]
One of the best Dropbox features – Camera Upload One of the nice features of Dropbox is the ‘Camera Roll’, it’s a simple and automatic way to copy photos between devices. Most commonly from your smartphone (Apple, Android) to your computer. It works automatically and often takes only seconds from taking the photo to it […]
How to recover files deleted from Dropbox storage Dropbox retains deleted files for 30 days. You can see those files from the web site. Click on the ‘Show deleted files’ button top-right. Click on the ‘open’ trash can to hide deleted files. Click on a deleted file to see the options available. You can Restore […]
If you put a file up on Dropbox, how does anyone know it’s there? If you put a file up on Dropbox, how does anyone know it’s there? Obviously you can tell them, by email, phone or even face-to-face! Or they can check the shared folder for anything new. Happily there are better options. Dropbox […]
Use Dropbox for sharing Office documents and collaboration on editing, but it’s not ideal. Another use for Dropbox is sharing Office documents and collaboration on editing, but it’s not ideal. With Office 2013 you can do this better with Skydrive because Microsoft’s own cloud storage allows simultaneous collaboration – in other words more than one […]
A simple guide to sending files via Dropbox. There are many ways to send files that are too big for email (usually over 20MB). In this article we’ll look at how to do that with Dropbox either sending a ‘one-off’ file or regularly exchanging files with someone else. Dropbox is very popular, generally free and well […]
Getting the free Dropbox software. The free Dropbox program is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It will synchronize your cloud storage with local folders, saving you the hassle of manually uploading/downloading each file. All the file transfers happen in the background. Dropbox software is the best and easiest way to use Dropbox storage. Most […]
2014 looks like the year of long movie titles with colons – here’s how to save yourself some typing. More and more movies are sequels and that means longer and longer movie titles. Most have colons because the studios don’t trust us to figure out that a movie is a sequel. Coming in 2014 we […]
Epson’s new label maker is a far cry from the old ‘Dymo’ labeler. We’d all but forgotten about label makers but the new Epson LW-600P made us think again. This is a laser printer for labels that’s battery powered with apps for both Android and iOS devices to link via Bluetooth, as well as the […]
An industrial dispute involving CAPS has ended. One of the most interesting industrial disputes of 2013 has now ended with a new agreement between staff and management of the Melbourne Fire Brigade in Australia. Being an emergency service, the administrative staff didn’t feel that a full ‘stop work’ strike was appropriate so they resorted to […]
How to number lines and paragraphs in Word. When you’re discussing a speech or other document ‘in progress’ you might want to number the lines or paragraphs for easy reference “Please change paragraphs 6, 7, 21 and 27”. Sure, these days there’s a lot of linking and online collaboration but there’s also a place for […]
Readers suggest some more uses for the Word/Office exclusion dictionary. As Office-Watch.com explained recently, the Office Exclusion dictionary can be used to take words out of the main dictionary. In other words, to ensure a word gets the red squiggly line. We had some suggestions for using the exclusion dictionary and our readers, bless you, […]
Why and How to remove words from the main Microsoft Office dictionary. Sometimes the supplied Office dictionary has words you don’t want or you’d like a warning about. Here’s how to put the red squiggly line under words that would otherwise be OK according to Microsoft. Why? Why would you want to remove words from […]
Keep your calendar clear by hiding private appointments like reminders to take medicine. Sometimes we have appointments or events that we want to keep private or at least hide from the regular calendar views. You can have appointments in Outlook which will pop-up reminders when necessary but not show up in your regular calendar view. […]
How to have email signatures for all the different roles in your life. Most of us wear different ‘hats’ – a family member, friend, person, employee or volunteer. Each of those roles can have a different Outlook email signature. Which signature you use depends on the situation and, perhaps, the email account you’re using. Clarification: […]
How to copy an image from the web into an Office document. Getting an image from your web browser to a Word document is quite easy, though easier with some browsers than others. In your browser, right-click over the image you want and look at the options available. At the very least there’ll be an […]
Christmas Cheer with Microsoft Office updated for Office 2010 and Office 2013 The Premium edition of Christmas Cheer with Microsoft Office has been updated for all customers – new and existing. We’ve updated the ebook to cover Office 2010 and Office 2013. All the Christmas themed sample documents – cards, gift tags, emails and letters […]
Office 2013: the real startup guide gets some updates for all readers. Our popular ebook Office 2013: the real startup guide has been updated with some new content for all readers. Volume Licencing chapter greatly expanded to include summary of the options as they apply to buying Office 2013, the pros and cons of Software […]
Filtered.com is offering a week long trial of their online courses. In conjunction with Skilledup.com – you can get a 7 day free trial of the Word, Excel and PowerPoint courses offered by Filtered.com Details at skilledup.com – scroll down to the bottom of the article for the sign-up form. Just to be clear: Office-Watch.com […]
How to get around your Word document. Once a document gets past a few pages, you need options for moving around that document quickly. Jumping from place to place as you refine your prose into something worth your name. Here’s some tips and shortcuts for moving quickly around a document – large or small. Word […]
Make eye-popping headlines in Word Word 2010 and Word 2013 have a greater range of text effects than earlier versions of Word. There’s an array of color, outline, shadow, reflection and glow options. Enough to satisfy most people and also enough for most people to make horrible design choices. Text effects start with a gallery […]
You can combine cell formatting into a style, but not like in Word. Excel has Styles … truly it does. Word has a way to combine formatting attributes of a letter, word or paragraph into a single block with a name like ‘Heading 1’. Excel has a feature also called Styles but it’s a very […]
A guard against stuck Kiosk presentations in PowerPoint. One problem with PowerPoint’s Kiosk mode is a slide that won’t advance as you expect. Your lovely presentation gets stuck on a single slide. Some versions of PowerPoint have inbuilt protection against that. After 5 minutes of no activity in a kiosk presentation, Powerpoint intervenes to restart […]
A fast way to add many photos to a presentation. Since at least PowerPoint 2003, there’s been a Photo Album option in PowerPoint. It’s a fast way to add many photos to a presentation. The Photo Album creates a series of slides from images you choose. Once the slides are created, you can adjust those […]
The notes pane is the key to some useful Footnote and Endnote options Now that Print Preview is the main editing view in Microsoft Word, the Notes pane has been somewhat forgotten but it’s the key to the details of Footnotes and Endnotes. Get to the Notes Pane Change the Word document View to Draft. […]
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. The footnote or endnote is stored in that little superscript character in the document text. Copy, move or delete that superscript character and the entire note goes as well. In other words, the […]
How to hide MS Word footnotes in a document. Sometimes you want a ‘clean’ version of the document without the clutter of notes. Or maybe the footnotes/endnotes are your own references for sources of information not intended for others to see. Ideally there should be options to print or export to PDF a document with […]
Change the look of Microsoft Word footnotes and endnotes. You can change the look of footnotes and endnotes using their linked styles: Footnote Reference Footnote Text Endnote Reference Endnote Text The two ‘… Reference’ styles create the look of the numbers, usually just superscript positioning of the default paragraph font. Changing the style could radically […]
