Like to know some more about your Microsoft 365 for Windows software license? How long the Office apps will run without an Internet connection? Here’s how to see that hidden license info, how it’s changed and a little good news too. Microsoft 365 software occasionally checks with Microsoft servers to
Here’s how to find out what type of Microsoft Office 365 licence you have with details hidden from the usual About dialog box. We recently showed it’s important for for perpetual non-subscription versions of Office like Office 2021 or Office 2019 to know if the purchase is Retail/Volume or OEM.
For all the changes Microsoft has made to Search (aka Tell Me), they continue to ignore one basic that would make Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook a lot easier to work with. Here’s some examples of how Microsoft Office search badly needs fixing. Search (formerly called “Tell Me”) usually appears
Microsoft is making Clipchamp available to their Microsoft 365 commercial customers after limiting access to consumer users for too long. As usual, Microsoft’s announcement has many ‘fine print’ details to annoy paying customers. Clipchamp is Microsoft’s online video editing service. It’s been available to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family customers
There’s a nice little Excel function that will calculate the rate of return on any asset like a stock or fund including income/dividends with purchases and sales over time. The secret sauce is XIRR() a function which calculates an internal rate of return with uneven interest or dividend payments. In
Can you scan a picture or document directly into Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook? Certainly, but these days we’re spoiled for choice and have fantastic features like using a smartphone as a simple scanner. Back in the day, you could click a button in Word 2003 to scan a document
There’s a bug in the latest release of Outlook 365 for Windows (Microsoft 365) which makes saving attachments slow to a crawl. Microsoft has a workaround to consider, if you’re desperate. The problem occurs when saving attachments to a network folder directly. There’s a long wait looking at this dialog
Excel’s new AI functions, under the Copilot branding, have started to appear in some public releases. Here’s the full list with syntax of all six AI functions. The functions have started appearing in some Excel 365 for Windows, Insiders Beta (version 2308 build 16708.20004). Not all Insiders see the same
Here are samples of the five new fonts available for Microsoft 365 and Office 2021 customers one of which has become the new default font, but under a different name – Aptos. Did we say five? … there are really 10 new sans-serif fonts. Each of the five newbies come
Barbie (the doll, not the Aussie BBQ) is everywhere at the moment so we’ll explain how to select Barbie Pink in your Word documents, Excel sheets and PowerPoint slides. There’s no one Barbie Pink but a selection to choose from. We looked around various official sources for the toys and
Everyone knows the SUM function in Excel but that’s just the start, there are eight SUM() functions (and more) for adding up numbers in different ways. SUM() SUM is one of the first functions taught to newcomers. It’s as old as Excel itself (older because SUM was in the first
At long last, there’s a way to insert an image into a single Excel cell called Place in Cell. No problems with floating images etc, just a cell with a picture which resizes with the cell size. Adding images to Excel sheets has always been confusing because they weren’t directly
Stability.AI now has a quick and easy way to expand or extend an image. Using AI, it can take an existing image to make a larger version. Unlike other options like OpenAI’s Outpainting, ‘Uncrop’ is quite simple to use. Whatever you call it; Uncrop, Outpainting, extending etc, it’s a useful
Microsoft Designer now has a nice Erase tool to remove unwanted parts of an image. Finding Erase is a little tricky, we’ll show you where it’s hiding and how to get the most from Erase. Erase lets you remove parts of an image. It’s not on the main image toolbar
We’re delighted to announce that our popular ebook Windows 11 (June 2023) for Microsoft Office users has been updated to accompany the latest mid-2023 “Moment 3” changes to Windows 11 itself. New Chapters Two new chapters have been added to the 1,000 page book plus other changes to reflect the
Tucked away in a little known part of Microsoft’s web sites is a lovely collection of wallpapers (or PowerPoint backgrounds) with new and old, nostalgic designs. Including a 4k rendering of the famous Windows XP wallpaper . Go to https://wallpapers.microsoft.design/ to see all the wallpapers. At first some in full-page
Microsoft is again changing the way Search works in Microsoft 365 and also (surprise!) Office 2021 to expand the results beyond the document or Office features. Now you can search for definitions, media and even web results from the top bar of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The most recent announcement
It’s one thing for a printer maker to add expensive and limited ink ‘subscriptions’ but HP have gone way too far by permanently disabling a printer if the customer stops the monthly plan. And there’s excessive monitoring of how you use your printer. HP+ Smart Printing System (aka HP Plus
There are three main ways to run a macro in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook). From the Macros list, from a button on a ribbon or from the Quick Access toolbar. We previously spoke about how to install an Office VBA macro, here’s how a macro can appear
HP is getting publicity for their printers in all the wrong ways with two faulty firmware updates. One update stops HP Printers from using non-HP ink cartridges while another update stops some printers working at all! “Dynamic Security” for HP Printers HP’s update to printers add what they call “Dynamic
Microsoft is now looking at the contents of password protected ZIP files stored on OneDrive, Sharepoint and other cloud services. Maybe with honorable intentions but there are serious privacy concerns that haven’t been acknowledged. For a long time, Microsoft’s antivirus and safety systems have opened up compressed ZIP files to
In early January 2023, Microsoft 365 for Windows stopped supporting Windows 8 or 8.1. Here’s the details of what you’ll have to do and a possible workaround. Microsoft 365 for Windows is supported on Windows 11, Windows 10 and, until 2023, Windows 8.1/8. It’s been a little surprising that the
All 20 (yes, twenty!) emblems for the Coronation of King Charles III, the exact colours required and how to use them in Microsoft Office like Word documents and PowerPoint slides. Also how to get an SVG/icon version of the emblem, ideal for modern Office apps and show just the parts
Has your invitation to the Coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla got lost in the mail? Never fear, you can make your own ‘replacement’ <g>. Or more likely use the ornate graphics for some other purpose, not always so serious. Here’s an ‘invitation’ made in PowerPoint with a name
