Microsoft played a great PR game over the last few days. They managed to deflect responsibility for the WannaCrypt ransomware global outbreak and even make the company look like the victim. Make no mistake, the main responsibility for the WannaCrypt trouble lies with Microsoft. Some blame can be directed to
Microsoft has released a patch for the latest security bugs in Office 2016 and 2011 for Mac. Three different memory corruption bugs are fixed. A hacked document tinkers with computer memory and tricks the computer into running an unauthorized program. We’ve seen these problems before and we’ll see more in
Everyone is talking about ransomware now that the WannaCrypt has spread like crazy across the world. These nasty viruses target your documents and precious files including Microsoft Office files and Windows backups. This is a little embarrassing for us because Office-Watch.com has just released a new book that’s suddenly become
Microsoft has moved quickly to block a security hole in their own anti-virus software, Windows Defender. We’re used to seeing email or instant messaging used to infect a computer when opening a document in Word or Excel, maybe an email in Outlook. But this is quite different and very worrying.
Coming soon is a new version of Windows, the Windows 10S. What does it mean for Microsoft Office users? The 10S is a stripped down and limited version of Windows 10. Some advanced features aren’t available while others are set to Microsoft’s preferences automatically. To buy 10S is cheaper than
There’s no doubt that the Microsoft Surface is a nice piece of kit but you pay extra for it and even more than that! Microsoft’s usual trick in promoting their Surface machines is to EXclude the price of the keyboard. That lets them promote a lower headline price which most
Adding fonts into Microsoft Office is easy but the standard advice doesn’t always work. We’ll show you how to install a font and avoid the trap. Font installation has nothing to do with Word, Excel or PowerPoint. It’s all done in Windows. Firstly, download the new fonts. There are many
Office-Watch.com has joined Instagram — the photo sharing site. The Instagram posts act as another way to get the latest Office news to you immediately. We’re @officewatch or https://www.instagram.com/officewatch/ A few readers have asked us to do this and we’re happy to oblige. We’re not entirely sure that Microsoft Office news is
The Dubai font inspired us to look at the currency symbol for the United Arab Emirates – the Dirham. A quick guide for those of us who don’t know any Arabic! There’s no direct symbol for the Dirham – unlike the dollar, Euro or Yen/Yuan. The usual prefix is DH
Hyped as the first city to get its own font, Dubai and Microsoft have released the Dubai font. Office-Watch.com looks beyond the press releases for the details on the new font and Dubai font alternatives. Dubai is a sans-serif OpenType font available for Windows and Mac. It’s not a full-range
If you can’t get the new Dubai font, there are many alternative fonts. The closest match we could find was FF Fago by Ole Schäfer. Among the fonts supplied with Windows/Office, the most similar is Lucida Sans. It’s on the drop-down list of fonts in Windows and Mac. Here’s Lucida
Microsoft Publisher is the ‘desktop publishing’ part of MS Office. It has many formatting options not available in Word and is useful for making marketing documents like brochures, catalogs etc. Publisher was somewhat forgotten because it was only in the high priced Microsoft Office bundles. That changed with arrival of
Microsoft puts corporate pride and weasel words ahead of their customers safety and security. Hackers take advantage of Microsoft’s patch release scheduled to release a virus as widely as they can in the days before fix was available. The Dridex security bug was known to Microsoft but they stubbornly stuck
Microsoft has announced reductions in service for customers who bought the ‘perpetual licence’ or one-off version of Office 2016 for Windows. Veiled? Some commentators are calling it a ‘veiled’ attempt by Microsoft to switch customers from the single-payment purchase to the annual ‘subscription’ system. The move is certainly aimed to
We’ve all played Solitaire, it’s been part of Windows since v3.1 but how did it begin? Surely there was a team of Redmond developers dedicated to the task, beavering away day and night, powered by diet cola and chocolate bars? Nope. Solitaire was made by a bored intern at Microsoft
The Washington Post tells of the troubles including less common languages like Icelandic in the next wave of technology. As Office nerds we immediately looked at how the Icelandic and other languages are supported in modern Office. There’s many language specific parts of Office, more than you might expect. Menus/Ribbon,
The Creators update to Windows 10 is coming this week. Windows 10 for Microsoft Office users, Creators edition is ready now before Microsoft publicly releases the new Windows 10. Past purchasers of Windows 10 for Microsoft Office users get a free update to the new edition. Be ready for the
After the recent docs.com scare we’ve had a few readers asking the basic questions: What is docs.com? What’s the difference between docs.com and OneDrive? In short, use OneDrive for all your cloud storage needs. Consider Docs.com, if you have a document that you’d like to share with the public or
An Office security breach, which was patched last year, is still being used to infect unpatched computers. Hacked documents using the vulnerability have been appearing in the last few weeks: SIMON WERNER GMBH - RFQ.doc 'security instructions' Visa.doc выписка.doc, 2017april.doc While the files have .doc extensions, they are really .rtf
One of the colors in the Crayola box is being dropped. Never fear, the color Dandelion can be part of your Office documents as can any other Crayola color. It’s not the same as the smell and feel of a Crayola crayon but it’s better than losing the color entirely.
As a publicity stunt, Microsoft published a list of common grammar mistakes made in Word. It’s strange that one of the listed mistakes is NOT detected even by the latest version of Microsoft Word. Office-Watch.com noticed this curiosity because we tested all Microsoft’s claims against their own Word software. We
Even today, despite the public outcry, a document saved to docs.com will automatically be available to everyone. The privacy choices aren’t obvious and the ‘public’ default isn’t clear either. Here’s what you see when uploading to docs.com You have to click the ‘three dots’ menu button then scroll down a
If you’ve ever used http://docs.com it’s a good idea to check what’s saved there and what public access is set. Login with your Microsoft account (or other login) and check the list of saved documents (click on your name at top right. Depending on your wishes you can: Leave as
The debate about the Oxford Comma continues with news that a Maine company has lost a court case for the lack of a vital extra comma. Oxford Comma is one of the lesser known grammar checks in Microsoft Word. Sadly, Word would not have warned of the problem and saved
