Microsoft is cunningly pushing Teams as part of its COVID-19 preparedness recommendations. But Teams isn’t the best option for everyone, far from it. Promoting Teams is good for Microsoft and their sales partners but not necessarily their customers. At Microsoft.com there are now special banner ads promoting Teams as the
Microsoft has been talking about document collaboration for a long time but now it’s available to everyone with a recent version of Office and OneDrive. So here’s a simple guide to opening the same document at the same time on multiple computers. You don’t need two people to try out
Here’s how to share a Microsoft Office document that’s saved on a compatible cloud service like OneDrive or Dropbox. All you need is Office 365/2019 or 2016 for Windows or Mac. Document collaboration works in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Sharing a single file via cloud storage is a lot faster
Here’s another example of why older .DOC Word documents should be avoided. This time it’s a fake Norton LifeLock email and hacked document. The Word .doc document has a fake login dialog . Source: Unit 42 The document executes a known remote access tool NetSupport Manager. That tool has legitimate
We highlighted Word 365’s Side to Side view but there’s another side-by-side viewing trick that works for any two windows on either Windows or Mac. Side by Side or Split View is great for many situations. No fussing about switching between windows or getting lost with all the open application.
The Konami Code symbols can be used together or separately in PowerPoint slides, Word documents or elsewhere. They serve to demonstrate some tricks and failings in Office and it’s SVG support. The Konami Code graphics caught our eye because they are a useful set of icons or graphics either complete
The Start Menu on a new Windows 10 has Microsoft Office icons which are badly labelled, misleading and setup to promote Microsoft’s corporate agenda. We’ll explain what Microsoft has done and how regular Office users can make the Start Menu better. Make a Start Menu that suits you, not Microsoft.
Last week we said it would not be long before Microsoft released their Office app for Apple devices and, sure enough, within a few days Office ‘all in one’ for iPhone and iPad is out. The app is a combination of Word, Excel and PowerPoint plus other tools into a
A new type of infected Word document is doing the rounds with the name ObliqueRAT with a few new tricks. ObliqueRAT is similar to an earlier nasty CrimsonRAT but has a range of infection capabilities and is encrypted. Password Protected The infected Word documents usually arrive via email and are
Microsoft has released a video to promote the Office Mobile ‘all in one’ app for Apple and Android. It’s big on fancy graphics but almost no useful information. There are lots of fancy colors, bouncing bubbles and even Office logos turning into balloons then exploding … all for no good
Farewell to Lawrence Tesler and Gary Starkweather. One gave us the clipboard with cut, copy and paste as well as the ridding computers of modes. Mr Starkweather invented the laser printer, a major innovation for the time. Back in the 70’s, word-processing programs had two modes – editing and viewing.
Apparently nothing can escape the touch of US politics*. Even Microsoft Word and PowerPoint got dragged into the latest Democratic Primary debate. It all started with Elizabeth Warren describing Pete Buttigieg’s health plan as ‘just a PowerPoint’. Buttigieg responded with the ad-lib that “I’m more of a Microsoft Word guy.”
The ‘all in one’ Office app combining Word, Excel, PowerPoint with Office Lens and PDF support is now available for all comers with Android phones. Office Watch did a comprehensive look at the Office app back in November when it was available to insiders. Now it’s available to all at
Our award for ‘Unhelpful Office error message of the week’ goes to this remarkable effort in Word 365’s Read Aloud feature which is just the start of Microsoft’s uselessness. We were trying to demonstrate Read Aloud in Word 365 when this singularly useless dialog appeared! “Read Aloud isn’t available because
A new Office app for Android a single ‘all in one’ app for Microsoft Office. We’ve done our own look at the new app, not relying on Microsoft’s hype to check out the Home panel, Actions, Word, Excel and PowerPoint features, PDF viewing and options, ‘image to text’ features and
Microsoft Word’s ‘Pickup where you left off’ or ‘Welcome back’ message is different from the Shift+F5 shortcut. All the recent talk about the ‘Pickup where you left off’ feature in Word had a few Office-Watch.com readers asking how it’s different from the long-standing GoBack shortcut in Word – Shift +
One of the more obscure settings when putting a frame around a picture in Word or PowerPoint is the Cap Type or line ends. This setting only applies when you are using one of the dashed borders with the choices Square, Flat and Round. To put a dashed border on
Join Type is what Microsoft calls the corners of the picture frames – the place where the horizontal and vertical lines join. There are three options: Round. Bevel and Mitre. We’ll show you where those choices are and what they look like. We’ve previously looked at ways to put frames
One of the quiet improvements in Office is the regular updates to the Office dictionary used mostly in Word and Outlook but also other Office programs. They even handle new terms like Coronavirus or names such as Buttigieg. In olden days the main dictionary was only updated with major revisions
Word and PowerPoint have some great ways to add a border or frame around an image, graphic or logo. We covered these broadly in a Framing Pictures in Office and now we will look in detail at the Compound Type, or multi-line borders. Compound Type is Microsoft’s name for the
Here’s how to find the version number of your Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook apps for iPhone or iPad. Sometimes it’s important to know which exact app version you’re running. Normally, the apps are updated automatically but occasionally it’s important info. Maybe you need to check the version to ensure
The iPhone apps for Word, Excel and PowerPoint have been redesigned with a new look that reduces the initial menu options from five to three. At least that’s what Microsoft is saying, though there’s no change in the apps so far. According to Microsoft the apps are “Redesigned From Scratch:
Hiding in plain sight are some useful tricks for picture formatting within a shape. It’s possible to fit or fill the image within the shape and, importantly, move the picture around with shape outline. Office Watch has already talked about various ways to change the look of an image within
Here are three options for putting a photo inside any Microsoft Office Shape or Icon (Word, Powerpoint etc.). Photographers call it cropping a photo to a shape or graphic. There are three different ways to get the same or similar result. Two are quick and easy. The third option is
