How to quickly insert symbols in Word without taking your fingers off the keyboard. Inserting Symbols into Word documents is a pain, go up to the ribbon Insert | Symbols | Symbol at the very least … or you can use a trick from the 20th century to keep your fingers on the keyboard. Type […]
Microsoft celebrates 25 years of the software suite. Microsoft quietly celebrated the 25th anniversary of their Office suite on 1 August 2014 but were they being a little ‘previous’ in their celebrations? While Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Windows were around on 1 August 1989, were they sold as ‘Microsoft Office’ or only as separate […]
Why your PowerPoint slides should NOT make much sense … Over on Slate there’s a nice little slideshow about making PowerPoint presentations that don’t bore your audience into a coma. In short, the advice is to make your slides incomprehensible. Well, not quite. The idea is that the slide content should complement or support what […]
Windows and Office gives you Arial font when you ask for Helvetica. We recently told you about the Helvetica font in Windows and Microsoft Office – or rather it’s noticeable absence. Microsoft plays some strange font substitution tricks that got us digging further. As we’ve noted, if you open up a document with Helvetica formatting, […]
A list of Microsoft Office versions and their latest Service Packs. If you don’t have Office 2013, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Here’s a list of the latest service packs for each version of Microsoft Office going back more than a decade. For the recent versions of Office, at least Office 2007 and later, you […]
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 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 […]
How accurate is Excel compared to universal needs. On page 45 of the Sept/Oct 2013 Mental Floss magazine is a small item ‘Why do we care so much about the digits if Pi’ which includes this trivia: “The computers that keep the International Space Station humming round off pi at a crude 16 digits. When […]
Getting started with Word’s footnotes and endnotes. Footnotes is one of those Word features that’s been around for a long time and so it often ignored in all the hoopla about new features. In this article we’ll have a close look at Footnotes and Endnotes. In Word there are Footnotes and Endnotes however they are […]
A quick look at your dictionary options in Word Even if you, like me, only speak one language there are still some powerful language and dictionary options in Word to keep in mind. All copies of Microsoft Office (recent versions anyway) come with English dictionaries. ‘Dictionaries’ plural because there’s many variants supplied. You’d expect English […]
What is an RTF document and why is it still being used? “I’m looking for a job and many employers are asking for my resume in RTF format. How do I do that and why can’t I just use a Word document?” Ian G. RTF (Rich Text Format) is an older document format that’s been around […]
Gerry Anderson isn’t with us, but the Thunderbirds live on even in MS Office. The recent passing of Gerry Anderson was sad news to hear. Mr Anderson enthralled millions of kids (and more than a few adults) with his groundbreaking shows like Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, UFO and, of course, Thunderbirds. As Office users, […]
How to use AutoCorrect for more than a word or character. Paul G writes: “Autocorrect is fantastic for the numerous standard letters, or specific instructions for various computer actions (downloads, etc). 1. I prepare the fully formatted text (sometimes 3-4 pages with complex formatting, inserted screen shots or tables etc) 2. Highlight the entire text […]
A quick way to type a tick character in Word. Another great Autocorrect suggestion from Morris B. ” … the one that I have found the most useful is to replace ‘./’ with a tick (wingdings 252 – or wingdings 254) “ Using the fullstop/period is a clever Autocorrect prefix since that character isn’t usually […]
Adding comments to documents isn’t just for groups, use them yourself. Word has a feature to let you add ‘below the line’ comments to documents – comments that don’t show up in the final document, don’t effect the formatting yet stay with the document file. Comments are included in Word’s collaboration features to help groups […]
Which versions Office can you use with Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Nerds and Geeks the world over, including us at Office Watch, will be poring over the Windows 8 Consumer Preview released today. But what about running Microsoft Office – can you use existing versions of Office on the Windows 8 preview? We’ll be trying […]
How to move existing Outlook items to an Office 365 or any other new email setup. Now that you have an Office 365 account working in Outlook you can copy your current Tasks, Contacts and Calendar from your current Outlook store into the Office 365 account. In short, open up the existing Outlook folder and […]
Copying or moving many items in Outlook isn’t easy – here’s how to avoid Outlook’s deficiencies. For as long as Outlook has existed, there have been problems when you copy or move many items around. Here are some suggestions from years of experience and frustration. When transferring many items, Outlook gets bogged down terribly. You’ll […]
How to use a single copy of Outlook on multiple machines. There’s an easy way to run a single copy of Outlook and use it on multiple machines – Remote Desktop. We’ve heard from many Outlook users who move their PST data files between a laptop and desktop computers. We’re happy to say there’s a […]
Why can’t you get the right key from a pre-installed copy of Office? Buying a pre-installed copy of Microsoft Office has some pitfalls and one of them is trouble recovering the Product Key. If you’ve lost your copy of the Office Product Key (essential for installing Office) then usually you can get the Key from […]
How to get table or other information from the net into Excel (or Word). Ever seen some data on the Internet and want to copy it for yourself? From small tables to large data chunks, there’s several ways to do it. Simple copying Almost any table or grid on a web page can be copied […]
Can you have a vertical ribbon in Microsoft Office? Is it possible to make the ribbon go vertically down the side of a document instead of horizontally? Back in Office 2003, it was possible to move the toolbar from the top row to any side of the Office window – at the bottom or even […]
Just because Office lets you embed a font doesn’t mean it will work. Word and PowerPoint have options to embed a font into the document, so why doesn’t it work? In theory you can select the ‘Embed fonts’ option for a document and all the necessary fonts will be included in the document. That means […]
How to enter accented characters, grave, circumflex, umlaut etc when they aren’t on the keyboard. Typing accented letters can be a chore and a mystery, especially for those of us unaccustomed to languages with the ‘extra’ letters. The keyboards don’t show accented letters and it’s not obvious how to type them. It’s good to get […]
Where is the Select All command and why you don’t need to find it. “As software changes so do the tool bars. A simple change for the location of the “select all” button is frustrating’ – Anthony C. We assume Anthony is asking about the ribbon in Office 2007 and Office 2010. Select All is […]
One important but hidden feature in Outlook will let you see more and faster. Outlook has a lot of different aspects; email, calendar, contacts etc and we see many people switching between them, waiting for different views to load …. and they don’t have to. If you click on a folder or navigation icon the […]
What to do when Outlook won’t reconnect to Exchange Server Ira J writes from his work laptop: “I have Outlook on my laptop for work. I leave it on all the time whether I’m connected to the Internet or not. Sometimes Outlook won’t connect to the office even when there’s a net connection and it […]
Another way to enter lists in Excel, why Microsoft’s effort sucks and an alternative. Excel has two ways of typing in data, there’s the usual direct entry into the worksheet or you can make a form with a single click of a button. For example here’s a ‘typical’ Excel list: And here’s the same list, […]
Free training manuals for Office 2007 and before plus Quick References for Office 2010. Mouse Training in the UK has released their training manuals free for all comers plus some Quick Reference Guides. The Training Manuals are for Office 2007, Office 2003, Office XP (2002) and Office 2000. They cover Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, […]
Can you run Office 2000 on Windows 7? Gene writes asking about running his Office 2000 software on his new computer with Windows 7. Office 2000 is shown as ‘NOT compatible’ on the official Windows 7 software compatibility list. Office XP (2002), Office 2003, Office 2007 and Office 2010 are listed as compatible with Windows 7. […]
How to write an email now and send it later. For many versions of Outlook you’ve been able to write an email now but delay sending it until a later time. Like many things with Outlook, there are several catches to the supposedly simple feature. Why delay sending a message? One example is a birthday […]
Now you have to pay for the ODF converter, what are the alternatives? Oracle, the new owners of Sun, are now charging for the previously free ODF plug-in for Microsoft Office. The plug-in lets MS Office read and write to the ODF file format which is a rival to Microsoft Office 2007/OpenXML document standard. It […]
How many rows and columns does Excel have? All the talk about 64-bit versions of Office has raised the issue of maximum rows and columns in Excel. A few readers seem to believe that 64-bit Excel will have more rows or columns than the 32-bit version. While that might be theoretically possible, it’s not true. […]
How to stop typing replacing or overwriting text. Daysha B writes “What I type replaces my existing text. How do I turn this off? Thank you.” As usual with Microsoft Office, nothing is as simple as it first appears. Most people probably know that the immediate answer is ‘Press the Insert key’. Insert (Ins) often […]
How to change Word zoom to your preferred Zoom settings. Ray R writes … “I have been having some vision problems lately and have found that using Word’s zoom dialog to increase the displayed font size without changing it in the document or email (I use Word as my email editor in Outlook) has been […]
Using the Office Envelope Object in Office 2000 – what works and what doesn’t. Some readers have asked whether the Office Envelope Object (featured in Access Archon #122) can be used in Office 2000. Well, sort of. While writing the article, I tested the two procedures in Office 2000 and found that the Word procedure […]
How to easily make appointments with other people using Outlook. Outlook has some great features for making appointments and sharing those details with others. The main features can be used by anyone to setup dinner, movies or any personal event. Outlook lets you create an appointment in your calendar then email the details to other […]
Fast access to important Outlook features. Trying out the messy interface and cumbersome ribbon in Outlook 2010 has reminded us of the importance of shortcut keys in working with any version of Outlook. Here are some keyboard shortcuts that are worth using with any version of Outlook and will serve you very well if you […]
Our popular Outlook guide is now available for Kindle device and Windows software. We’re delighted to announce the release of our Clever Outlook Contacts book on Amazon for worldwide distribution on your PC or Kindle device. It’s the same ebook as we’ve sold to thousands of people over the years, complete with full color images […]
A global travellers guide to saving money and flying to interesting places on low cost airlines around the world. Regular travellers can get a nasty shock when they first fly on one of the new ‘low cost carriers’ (LCCs). Sure the fares are very low (US$15 or less at times) but it’s a far cry […]