Deep in Microsoft Word is the choice “Automatically Update Document Styles“. What does that do and which documents are affected? There are several similarly worded options to do with ‘Style’ and ‘Automatic’ so let’s be clear … we’re talking about File | Options | Add-ins | Manage | Templates |
The Apple command ⌘ symbol can be typed into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Apple command ⌘ symbol appears on Mac and iPad keyboards but only as a command option, not as a symbol to type. The ⌘ symbol predates
There are some great and editable Periodic Table of Elements options available in Microsoft Office – Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides There are many Periodic Table ‘documents’ on the net but most are PDF’s or images that can’t be changed. We’re looking for editable Word documents and Excel
After more than a decade of apathy, Word users were supposed to get a document To Do list feature. In 2018 Microsoft listened to customers – but not for long. Update: Word’s To Do list ended up as a ‘dead end’. The feature appeared in Word 365 beta/Insiders releases in
Insert the North West or Top Left Arrow ↖ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. North West Arrow ↖ or “Top Left Arrow” can be used for directions on a map (naturally) or pointing to ‘top left’ in a Word
Your deadline is in four hours, you’ve got pages to write and BAM! a letter key breaks on your keyboard …. What do you do? There are at least six different workarounds available in Word, Windows and Mac. A broken key happened to Colin Chambers, a University of Buffalo student
Is there one space or two between sentences? Word lets you check the sentence spacing or ignore it completely. It’s a useful option for those of us who learnt on manual typewriters where double sentence spacing was standard. Switching to single spacing is hard for your fingers to remember. One
‘Punctuation required with quotes’ is the most commonly changed Microsoft Word grammar and style setting. It checks is for the location of commas etc. when used with a quotation. Here’s two similar sentences to demonstrate: In US usage, the sentence punctuation mark go inside the quotation marks. In standard British /Commonwealth
Microsoft Word can check for the Oxford Comma in your lists and it now uses that name in Word 2016 for Windows or Mac. Sadly, Word 2016’s options have been degraded from earlier versions. Word 2016 can only warn you if the Oxford Comma is NOT there … good for
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
Can or should you open Office documents directly from removable storage like portable hard drives, USB ‘memory sticks’ or even floppy disks? Since we wrote about removable drives and drive letters we’ve had long time Office users asking about opening documents directly – should it be done at all. Many
Handwrite direct into Office apps for iPad, converting your writing into text right away, courtesy of the iOS Scribble feature. What you’ll need, how to setup and the new thing to look for on the Draw tab of the Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps. Microsoft has integrated the Scribble feature
Microsoft has dropped down hard on a UK teacher with a little bit of plastic helping dyslexic students read. It seems the company can’t learn from past mistakes. “Word Windows” is a small plastic reading tool which makes a little window so readers can focus on a word or letters
Microsoft 365 and Office 2021 for Windows can make images transparent in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Text or other graphics can show through the picture. Pictures can be made transparent to reveal what’s behind in lower layers of the document, slide or worksheet. For any image go to Picture
Here’s how to get the Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon look in Word documents and PowerPoint slides. Plenty of people have borrowed the Game of Thrones or GoT look, including a certain US President. All these uses are contrary to various trademarks by HBO. Despite legal complaints
The \s n switch inside the { SEQ } field code isn’t easy to understand so here’s an example of how it resets numbering after a Heading style. Use {SEQ \s n } to restart numbering from 1 after a chosen Heading style. E.g. { SEQ Identifier \s 1 }
Get the most from the SEQ (Sequence) field code in Microsoft Word using these options and switches. Office-Watch.com has tested all the {SEQ} features and found a few things that are different from the official Office documentation. To start with {SEQ } check out Why Word’s SEQ code is a
A Monday morning glitch by Microsoft has accidently disabled access to most Microsoft 365 Stock images and more. At 5:30pm UTC (12:30pm NYC): Microsoft 365 Stock Content is now available on our test machines in the UK and USA. Give your Insert | Pictures | Stock Images a try with
Microsoft Word has many supplied Bibliography formats or styles to choose from. You can add your own custom formats to suit your needs (or your professors). First, a quick look at how Word figures out how to format or arrange a citation. See: Add a Bibliography to Word documents Citations for
Type the Orthodox Cross ☦ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Orthodox Cross or Russian Othodox Cross ☦ symbol is widely seen in Russia and in particular the Russian Orthodox Church. There’s also a Christian or Latin Cross ✝ symbol
Type the Marriage Symbol ⚭ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Marriage Symbol ⚭ symbol is two interlocked circles with obvious symbolism. It can be used for any situation you like, perhaps when two items or groups merge or an
Whenever someone has a numbering or list problem in Microsoft Word, the solution usually revolves around the little known but oh so flexible SEQ code. SEQ lets you do things in Word that aren’t possible with the numbered or multi-level list features. Even the powerful ListNum field has to give
We have recently discussed how to show hidden formatting characters in Word, but it is also possible to hide text and even images in Microsoft Word, as long as you are using Word desktop on Windows or Mac. See Find and Remove Hidden Text in Word Hidden text positioning and formatting
Cell Margins and Cell Spacing are two important settings in any Microsoft Word Table but they aren’t used much and not well understood. Cell margins are the spaces between your text and the edge of the cell. They can be set separately for the top, bottom, and either side of
