Headline your next document with cats! Looking for something really different to headline your next document or presentation – why not use ‘Neko Font’ the font made out of cats. Strictly this isn’t a font you can download, instead you type text into a web page, choose the size (Large, Medium, Small or Tiny) and […]
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 […]
Does Microsoft have a list of blocked words like Apple does on the iPhone? One of the more amazing examples of over-control by a software maker is the news that Apple has a ‘Kill List’ of words that it won’t spell-check. It seems that iOS v6 devices have a list of ‘sensitive’ words that the […]
How to use a QR Code in Microsoft Word QR Codes are those funny little boxes you see on ads, signs or, ahem, the cover of a great book … Scan that code with your smartphone camera and it’ll read information, most commonly a web link. QR Code in Word Putting a QR Code into […]
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 […]
The ‘secret’ is out, Outlook is coming to Windows RT tablets. Windows RT tablets, like Microsoft’s Surface, are to get proper Outlook software later this year. The news was announced by Microsoft in a blog post but the work on Outlook RT had been an open secret for months. Windows RT is the low-power version […]
There’s SUM and then there are all the useful SUM variations to choose from. Excel’s SUM() function is probably the first one we learn but there’s a lot more to it than simply clicking on the button to add up a list of numbers. In this article we’ll look at the options available in SUM […]
The new Wikidata site should provide hours of Excel ‘fun’. The WikiMedia foundation, operators of Wikipedia among others, is developing a new site called Wikidata. It will be a home for public ‘structured data’ in other words, lists. There are plenty of lists already in Wikipedia. Wikidata will link with Wikipedia and help structure those […]
Really obvious spam/phishing messages not caught by Microsoft’s spam filters. You’d think that a very short message with only a web link that has an IP number not domain name would go straight to the Junk Email folder but no. On our test machines (Exchange Server and Outlook 2013 with the latest spam filters from […]
StartSSl offers free digital certificates for your Outlook email – here’s how to get yours Email digital signatures aren’t used a lot which is a shame because they are very useful. Signed emails are verified to come from you while it’s possible to encrypt your messages (to prevent anyone else reading them) when both you […]
Using a picture as the background for Word page isn’t as straight forward as it seems. You can add a background image to any page in a Word document instead of a solid color or pattern. Most of the time you’ll find a background image to be distracting to the main document text or you […]
A little Excel quirk to mention using LEN() with large numbers. A little Excel quirk to mention. For as long as we can remember you could get the number of digits in a number by simply using =LEN() even though the input is a number, not text. But have a look what happens for the […]
Excel and really large numbers – they don’t play nice together. When we wrote about large prime numbers in Excel we forgot that Excel doesn’t do a good (some might say honest) job with large numbers. Sorry about that – mea culpa. Excel is fine with integers up to 15 digits but once you go […]
The secret to a timeline chart in Excel is the data. Emily writes asking “How can I make an Excel chart with dates on the X axis with a proper time scale – even if the dates aren’t regular? “ We could not understand Emily’s question until we asked for more details. Making a date […]
Make the famous WW2 poster yourself, and countless variations, in Microsoft Office. Make the famous WW2 poster yourself, and countless variations, in Microsoft Office Keep Calm with Microsoft Office is the latest in our series of practical ebooks for Microsoft Office users. We don’t just tell you how to use Office, we supply […]
Adding some text, an arrow or graphic to an image should be an easy task in Word … and it is … once you know the trick. Adding some text, an arrow or graphic to an image should be an easy task in Word … and it is … once you know the trick. You […]
Add better multi-monitor support for Windows As you put your Office applications across more than one monitor, you’ll find the need for better controls than the ones in Windows. That’s where UltraMon comes in. These days it’s common to see two monitors with Office programs and browser windows open across both. A couple of Outlook […]
What to look for in emails that might be up to no good. Ernst and Young in conjunction with the FBI has developed a tool to check for fraud via email conversations. The software looks for key phrases that are often used when people are discussing something they should not be doing. That’s useful for […]
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, […]
Some common characters don’t need help from Autocorrect in Word. Our good friend and budding woodworker, Rose Vines adds her $0.02 to our AutoCorrect suggestions, especially for accented characters. This is something we’ve talked about in Office-Watch.com before, but is worth repeating. “There’s very simple built-in shortcuts for accented characters in both Word and in […]
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 […]
Tips for making Autocorrect shortcuts that are easy to remember. Bob C writes: ” I use MS Word autocorrect to insert longer words of phrases that I’m too efficient.. OK,lazy.. to try to spell or type out completely, usually duplicating several leading consonants in the word or leading letters of words in a phrase. […]
How to type the micron/micrometer symbol in Word. Stuart H has an AutoCorrect suggestion: “ I need to use the symbol μ for micron (1/000 mm) and use mu for this. “ The Micrometre / Micrometer is one-millionth of a meter. The μ character is the Greek letter ‘mu’ which is the standard prefix for […]
Microsoft security patch causes new bugs. It has to happen some times a new Microsoft security patch has caused a new bug to arise in PowerPoint among other software. In the last set of security patches there was MS12-078 but the patch itself is faulty and will have to be replaced. The patch is to […]
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 […]
Readers suggestions for using Autocorrect with the degree sign and temperature Yehuda Z says: “I use (0) to auto-correct to the symbol for degrees ?. It makes things much easier. I also use ty and tyvm for Thank you! and Thank you very much! respectively. Little tricks like this save lots of time! ” If […]
Insert special characters into Office documents quickly. One of the eternal questions to Office Watch is about adding extra characters to a keyboard. The most common requests are for adding currency symbols like Pound £ Euro € or Yen/Renminbi ¥ but can also include the @ symbol which can, even these days, be missing from […]
How to keep getting your Gmail even when it’s not working Gmail had another outage which continues as we type this, at least that’s how it was reported. In fact the core Gmail system was still working, only the web interface was broken. This has happened before and Office-Watch.com has talked about how to workaround […]
Is Journal in Outlook of any use to you? You might have noticed the Journal part of Outlook and wondered what it’s all about. Possibly you’ve clicked on Journal and got no further than this dialog: In this article we’ll look at Journal and help you decide if it might apply to your needs. Journal […]
There’s many ways you can arrange your Inbox in Outlook. Whenever we look at the Outlook setup used by other people, two things are striking. One is that few people change the default layout provided by Microsoft to something that suits them. We’ll look at that another time. The other thing is the different ways […]
Microsoft changes the Office compatibility for Windows 8 but doesn’t explain why, so we do. Microsoft has changed the Windows 8 compatibility statement for Microsoft Office versions from the promises during the Windows 8 Preview. Our new book is Windows 8 for Microsoft Office users with the stuff you need to know and none of […]
A new ebook from Office Watch, more detail, less hype. We’re delighted to announce a brand new title from Office Watch. Windows 8 for Microsoft Office users is now available. After the success of Office 2010: the real startup guide we decided to do something similar for Windows 8. Windows 8 for Microsoft Office users […]
Why does the same picture appear sideways in Outlook but right side up elsewhere? Recent versions of Outlook let you preview a picture by clicking on the attachment icon. Sometimes the picture appears sideways in the preview pane with no rotate control to fix that. Even more mysterious, if you open the same image in […]
Outlook reply with visible text to a colored background message Messages with colored backgrounds might look OK to the sender but are a pain when you try to reply or forward. Most of these messages are marketing emails but some are from individuals. For example, here’s a typical message that’s been forwarded to a friend. […]
Benford’s Law is an amazing tool that is simple to use in Excel. A simple guide to using Benford’s Law with Excel Benford’s Law is an amazing tool that is simple to use in Excel. Benford’s Law is one of those mathematical laws that seems to defy common sense but works for most naturally occurring […]
Get the full medal tally into Excel for your own analysis. We close our Olympics coverage (sorry “Quadrennial Corporate-sponsored Rings-based Sporting Event”) with links to some looks at the medal tally. The Guardian continued their data analysis of the medal wins. In the end they produced a simple interactive which shows the medal count adjusted […]
How to show original text and translation side by side in Word. The recent versions of Word have had an in-built translation feature that, like so many things in Microsoft Office, doesn’t quite go far enough. The basics are simple enough. On the Review tab there’s a Translate button. Click on that to translate the […]
There are various options for making sure a text label matches the quantity. There are various options for making sure a text label matches the quantity. For example if the cell has 1 item you want the singular label: 1 cookie But if the value is more than one, it’s nice if the label changes: […]
What is an interrobang and how to use it in Microsoft Word. Interrobang is a non-standard punctuation mark – a combination of a question mark and exclamation mark. In Word, interrobang looks like this: (Interrobang in some common Word fonts: Calibri, Cambria, Arial Unicode MS & Lucida Sans Unicode.) In the sixties, the interrobang was […]
