Choosing the sort type is really important and Word doesn’t always guess correctly. Office-Watch.com reader Peter M. reminds us that choose the sort type is really important: Text, Number or Date. “I just thought it worth pointing out that, for example 8, 70, 600 would sort in one order as Text and the reverse order […]
The last man on the moon is missing from Microsoft Office. Let the conspiracy theories begin! The last man to walk on the moon, Captain Eugene Cernan, is a notable omission from the Microsoft Office dictionary. Update: as of November 2015 we’re delighted to see that Gene Cernan is now in the Microsoft Office 2016 […]
How to sort a list using a hidden or unseen list in Word. Sometimes you want to sort a list in a way that isn’t apparent to the reader. To continue our Apollo theme, here’s a list of the twelve men who walked on the moon with the order they stepped onto the surface. To […]
You can hide a column in Word, all it takes is a little trickery. Sometimes you want to hide a table column in a Word document but according to Microsoft you can’t do it. Here’s how to do it anyway. It’s true that there’s no explicit ‘hide column’ option like in Excel but you can […]
In-depth and clever tricks with sorting in Word. Following our look at different alphabetical orders, here’s a look at the sorting options in Word. You can sort paragraphs, lists and tables in a Word document. Select the list or paragraphs then choose Home | Paragraph | Sort. For tables there’s similar sort options are at […]
Which version of alphabetical order does Microsoft Word use? I thought that alphabetical order was, well, alphabetical order. That’s what I was taught at school and apparently I was taught wrong. There are at least three ways, two used by dictionaries, another by Microsoft and that’s for English alone! Reading Sue Butler’s delightful book ‘The Aitch […]
Microsoft adds the Ruble symbol to Windows 8.1 and we show you how to add it to earlier versions of Windows. Part of the Windows 8.1 August 2014 update is the addition of the new Russian Ruble currency symbol. All Microsoft will say about this change is “This feature adds new Ruble currency support for […]
Why Excel PivotTables get messed up and how to stop it. Time and again we’ve heard from people who try PivotTables and only get nonsense tables. That’s understandable since Microsoft’s hype about PivotTable ignores the basics that we’ll cover in this article. You’ve probably seen a Microsoft demonstration of PivotTables where it looks sooooo easy. […]
How to add and remove data from a PivotTable. Thanks for the great feedback from our article on PivotTables. One concern some of you have is about adding or removing source data after the PivotTable has been created. That’s understandable because the original PivotTable releases where unclear and curiously sensitive about the data ranges used. […]
Microsoft needs to play ‘catch up’ with email encryption. Yahoo is going to join Google is supporting not just email encryption but the same type of email encryption. Sadly we’ll have to wait until sometime in 2015 for Yahoo to release their version of OpenPGP. That’s good news … but where is Microsoft? For all […]
Quickly insert symbols, characters and emoji in Microsoft Word without taking your fingers off the keyboard. Inserting Symbols into Word documents is a pain, go up to the ribbon Insert | Symbols | Symbol which takes time … or you can use a trick from the 20th century to keep your fingers on the keyboard. […]
Some programs let you email documents directly – here’s now. Microsoft Office for iPad has an ‘Email as attachment’ as one of its limited options for sharing a document. Here’s some clever ways to make use of that and workaround the Office for iPad limitations. Some cloud services offer an ‘incoming email’ option so you […]
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 […]
The Insert | Symbol feature in Office is overdue for an overhaul. Our venture into the new Unicode symbols and symbol fonts highlighted how much work Microsoft needs to do on this part of Office. Insert | Symbol has changed for a long time and many versions of Office. Here’s Insert | Symbol in Word […]
A Windows feature that’s very useful for Microsoft Office users. Character Map has been in Windows for as long as we’d like to remember and it’s done right. Over the years, the ‘softies who’ve worked on it have given some thought to the needs of people trying to find and preview characters. You’ll find Character […]
A simple, practical and non-scary example of how Excel PivotTables can work for you. Excel’s PivotTables are a great feature but one that seems way too hard for most of us … so here’s a simple and practical example of how PivotTables can help. A little fear of PivotTables is understandable. It’s one of those […]
The two procedures will let you easily clear up redundant Word documents, and alphabetize lists of declarations. Access versions: 2007-2013 Level: IntermediateIntroduction The two procedures described in this article will let you easily clear up redundant Word documents, and alphabetize lists of declarations. When working on the 3rd edition of my Working with Word ebook […]
Word: how to find the character code used for a particular letter or symbols. Last week we talked about the Unicode v7.0 symbols and how to use symbols in Word. With over 100,000 characters in the Unicode specification, it’s important to know the character code number for the symbol you want. That raises the question, […]
A funny example of how you can’t trust the spelling and grammar checks in Word. We laughed at this sign, seen in a Tesco’s supermarket in the UK. Thanks to @sparkigol for the image Now, we don’t know that Microsoft Word was used to make this sign, but it’s a good bet. So we wondered […]
What is Delve and what does it mean for Microsoft Office? At the recent Microsoft conference there was mention of Microsoft Delve. But what the ?^%$ is ‘Delve’? It’s an enhanced search tool for your documents and online info. Not just standard Office documents but also videos, audio, links to web sites etc that are […]
