All about Microsoft Office for Apple Mac. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook on macOS
Microsoft 365 for Mac, Office 2021 for Mac and earlier versions.
An often-repeated myth says that Word’s spelling or proofing language default is locked into the Windows language setting. Officially that’s not true and never has been since the first Word for Windows in 1989. In practice there’s a bug in Word which is why this persistent myth keeps being repeated.
Excel 365 has two new translation functions to identify language from text or translate text from one language to another. Let’s see how the work, some problems and unknowns. New in Excel 365 are: DetectLanguge() to identify the language of the text supplied, hopefully correctly (see below) Translate() converts text
The Microsoft 365 Insiders blog is ending, sorta. kinda. Really, it’s just moving to another part of the Microsoft.com web site. For the last five years, the Microsoft 365 Insiders blog has been the place where the company boasts about new and changed features in the Insiders or beta versions
Word can spell and grammar check in many languages, here are three ways to switch the language settings plus how to turn off the pesky automatic language switching. Microsoft Word has language settings that can apply to a whole document or just selected text. This is vital for multi-language documents
There’s a simple but not so obvious way for Excel to take a list of values and show them grouped into segments or groups. As an example, here’s the results of a class exam with their scores grouped into blocks of 20. It’s done with a tricky use of PivotTables
We went hunting for koalas in Microsoft Office. Found more than 18 of the cuddly marsupials for Word, PowerPoint or Outlook. There are emoji, Office icons, SVG, online images and more making a colony or cling of koala (either can be the collective noun for koala). None of the endangered
A PDF file made from Microsoft Office or Windows may not look right because of an ongoing PDF bug with variable fonts. It’s been around for years with no sign of a fix. The problem arises when variable fonts are in documents exported to PDFs (either Save As … or
Clipchamp, Microsoft’s video editor is now boasting background removal which is great for tricks like adding a watermark or ‘bug to a video. But there’s some limitations or ‘gotchas’ to watch out for. Add an image to a Clipchamp timeline, right-click then choose ‘Remove Background’. Wait a few moments and
Excel 365’s Linked Data Types are technically impressive. However, the reliability of the data is a problem Microsoft doesn’t talk about. We discovered mistakes with the data without actively looking for them. In general, the data sources are ‘scraped’ from sites like Wikipedia which explains some, but not all, of
The BBC has released some high-quality images from their famous TV shows to be used as online meeting backgrounds or in PowerPoint slides. Pick from Doctor Who (old or new), Fawlty Towers, Yes Minster, Match of the Day, Eastenders and more. Consider using these BBC TV backgrounds in PowerPoint for
Some imported Outlook calendar items can’t be changed, here’s why and how to make the imported appointment editable. Understanding issues with an Outlook imported appointment can help you manage calendar inconsistencies. Usually an imported appointment (via a downloaded .ics file) can be edited just like most Outlook calendar items. Often
Zoom has a browser-based word processor to their Workplace range with some interesting features including what they call the Magical Key. Zoom Docs word processor aims to enhance productivity within its collaborative environments. Zoom Docs is designed to be used within Zoom group calls and many of the templates reflect
Microsoft’s eventual replacement Outlook (new) for Windows supports Gmail, Yahoo and other accounts but there’s a privacy trap that Microsoft does its best to hide. Outlook for Windows privacy is a major concern. According to Microsoft, it’s easy to add Gmail, Yahoo and other accounts to the new Outlook, all
Can Microsoft Word handle a newly famous name “Walz” or does Word think it’s a spelling error? What about the other VP candidate, “Vance”? In the last few hours, we’ve seen social media posts like this: “ Okay, word people, now would be a great time to put a “Walz
We’ve expanded our live Paris Olympics medal table to compare countries’ performances to their population or wealth. Along the way we explain how to cope with some problems that can arise when Excel theory hits the Real World. Our newsletter readers get a working example workbook to try themselves. We
Microsoft shareholders should be happy with the company’s latest financial results for the quarter ending 30 June 2024 (Q4). Here’s a few highlights from an “Office Watch” point of view. Office 365 Commercial Revenue growth was up 13% possibly due to the new Copilot for Microsoft 365 fees. (All these
Excel for Mac is now getting the ‘From Folder’ option in PowerQuery. An important part of the PowerQuery puzzle. PowerQuery’s ‘From Folder’ lets you add more data to a query simply by adding data files into a folder. PowerQuery will then scoop up all the data and add it to
Paying Copilot Pro customers have lost a major part of what they pay for. Say goodbye to Copilot GPT Builder in early July 2024. It’s only been a few months since Microsoft launched their paid AI plans including Copilot Pro and they are already removing a major component. Copilot GPT
Here’s some more ordinal rank (First, 2nd etc.) options for Excel including with joint or equal results plus special fun wording. In a previous article we looked at options for showing ordinal numbers in Excel, now we’ll go a step further to cope with joint or equal results plus special
Here’s the complete step-by-step manual method of replacing text with filler or anonymous words in Microsoft Word. This is quite easy, the main thing is to be careful with the Find and Replace expressions. It will work with any version of Word that has the ‘wildcards’ / Regex option which
A US government department has accidentally revealed a secret by overlooking the obvious in Office document security, the file name. Microsoft Office helps you scrub documents of private or secret information before sending. It’s easy to overlook the obvious data leaks that ‘Inspect Document’ doesn’t cover. ‘Inspect Document’ checks for
Add to your Outlook a special Paris 2024 Olympics calendar shows all the events plus opening/closing ceremonies with times in your location and search for favorite events. A special Olympics calendar shows all the events plus opening/closing ceremonies with times in your location. This calendar shows the Olympic calendar in
Here’s how to quickly add events from the Paris 2024 Olympics into your Outlook calendars, showing times in your location. The Paris Olympic organizers have provided an online calendar with .ics calendar files for individual events from their website. Those calendar files can be imported into Outlook for Windows or
Pronouncing the name “Kamala” is a source of confusion even to Microsoft Office’s Read Aloud feature which needs a little tweaking. How does Word’s grammar check handle the possessive, it is Harris’s or Harris’? Kamala Harris has a Sanskrit based name which is simple to pronounce once you know the
