Microsoft released an interesting new tool for Office 2013/2016 which promised to be a major improvement on current ‘speech to text’ options. Most media have just reported Microsoft’s hype, we actually tested Dictate and here’s what we’ve found. What made Dictate different is the use of Cortana voice recognition technology.
Microsoft Office 365 and Office 2021 let you save images to SVG format from either images/graphics, charts or whole slides from PowerPoint. Originally ‘Save As SVG’ was only in PowerPoint 365 Windows but it’s quietly spread to Word 365, Excel 365 and Outlook 365 as well as the Office 2021
As we predicted last week, the “Microsoft 365 Oreo Expansion Pack” have appeared on Ebay and at a massive markup over the original price. The ‘special’ offer had a Microsoft 365 “Expansion Pack” of Oreo’s (apparently no waistline joke intended) plus a little plastic tong called a “Clippy Dippy”. Only
There’s a lot more printing and money saving options available if you know where to look or use a little cunning to get what you want. Microsoft Word documents with rescaling paper size, saving money in ink or toner, double-sided printing, two pages to a sheet, poster sizes and booklets.
To my horror, I encountered something strange while working on a Word document with “strung out” or ‘stretched’ text on the last two lines with huge gaps of space between them. Here’s the two ways it can happen and the four fixes available. A stretched-out line in a Word document
When Microsoft Word was first released, all those years ago, it had a Paste feature but it was dumb and literal. These days Word’s Paste (Word for Windows and Word for Mac) is a lot smarter and does very useful things that you may not realize or appreciate. Before the
Type the three different types of Ellipsis … marks in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Ellipsis … symbol is used for a gap or break in some text, usually to drop out some irrelevant text or speech. The same applies
Like it or loath it but the comma ellipsis has arrived ,,, as an alternative to the more common ellipsis with dots. Here’s how to use it in Word and Office. The comma ellipsis is a modern, more casual version. It’s used as a more dramatic, even annoyed trailing off
See just 55 seconds of what’s coming in the “Microsoft 365 App” via a video from Microsoft. If the Microsoft 365 App seems familiar, it’s not deja vu … The video had already leaked, as we showed our readers a few days ago. The ‘app’ is very similar to the
The latest Microsoft Office 365 for Windows has a new and, to date, undocumented, toolbar or “personalized Office experience”. This ‘toolbar just for you’ is both more and less than it appears. The toolbar is an effort to declutter the top or title bar of the Office apps. Microsoft has
How can you change the Author name in an Office document? How can you know that the name in a Microsoft Word document is the actual person not an imposter? It’s easy enough to go to File | Info to see and change the document Author name. We did that
Last week Microsoft made a series of announcements of new and changed features in Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365. Here’s a brief roundup of what the main ten promises and what they mean for you (if anything). The important word is ‘announcement’. Almost all the statements are about future arrivals,
If you thought the modern world could not get any stranger, we’ve got bad news. Microsoft Office and Oreos (the chocolate cookie) have combined for a marketing stunt with online events (sorry “snack breaks”), special packs, tchotchke and emoji. Poor old Clippy has been dragged in as well. On the
Footnote marks aren’t limited to numbers. Microsoft Word has many choices for listing footnotes or endnotes including the standard symbol order for notes or even your choice of custom symbols or emoji. Just one possibility for a footnote mark is a right-pointing hand like this: In-built Footnote/Endnote number choices Go
Today, 17 October, is Spreadsheet Day and Microsoft has joined the event with a fun example of what Excel is capable of. #spreadsheetday #spreadsheets #excel Microsoft Excel at Office-Watch.com The hidden trap in Excel’s DateDif()Better Excel formula converts days into Years, Months, DaysFour ways to make text fit in an
Microsoft has announced that “Microsoft Office” is now “Microsoft 365” – big deal. That already happened back in 2019 and the Office name will still be used. Is it really a name change or a bit of hype? What’s really changed? There’s a new logo – that’s all. As I
Type the Yen ¥ currency symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Yen is used for Japanese currency and the Chinese Renminbi / Yuan. Microsoft Excel also offers the Yen symbol for Mongolia even though the tögrög currency uses another
Recreate the Murphy Brown TV show’s look as a design inspiration for Word and PowerPoint – the fonts, colors and lines. You may not want to use the exact look of the Murphy Brown title card, but it’s a starting point for design variations of your own. We’ll show how
Word can generate a list of all the tables in a document. Like a Table of Contents, this list of tables or Table of tables can include page references or links to each table. A Table of tables can be useful for creating a proper appendix or reference within more
Outlook can handle more than one calendar and has three options for easily viewing them, either individually or combined. Calendars can be displayed side-by-side or the more useful Overlay option. There’s also the ‘New Window’ option. Choosing the Outlook calendars to view In Outlook calendar view, use the check boxes
Type the Pilcrow Sign ¶ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Pilcrow Sign ¶ is a typographical symbol sometimes called a paraph, or blind P In typography ¶ marks the start of a paragraph but in Microsoft Word the Pilcrow Sign ¶ marks
Here’s a better Excel formula for converting a number of days into text for year, months and days. This formula leaves out zero values and proper singular/plural (e.g. not “1 Year 0 Months 27 Days” but “1 Year 27 Days”). And we’ll show an even better way to write the
Suggested fonts including “handwriting fonts” to help teach writing recognition and improve literacy. Office Watch reader Wim V saw our article on Avoiding Comic Sans and wrote to us about a use for Comic Sans and other fonts used in teaching literacy. Some fonts can be used to teach people how
A Word document and a floppy disk caught a serial killer back in 2010. There are still lessons for anyone wanting to keep their personal or business data confidential. Known as the ‘BTK killer’, he murdered 10 people in Kansas between 1974 and 1991. The murderer was finally caught in
