Did you know Windows quietly swaps out Helvetica font for Arial every time you open certain documents? This subtle substitution affects how text looks in Word, browsers, and more. Learn why Helvetica isn’t included in Windows, how Microsoft handles font replacements behind the scenes, and what you can do to
Microsoft’s default font family, Aptos, isn’t limited to Microsoft 365 or Office 2024. Anyone can download and install the complete Aptos font set directly from Microsoft to use across any app or platform. Whether you’re running Office 2021, older Office versions, or non-Microsoft software like LibreOffice, this quick download ensures
Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 have several save features, AutoSave, AutoRecover, background saves, and backup copies. Our guide explains the differences, limitations, and best practices so you can avoid losing important work in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office apps. Maybe you’ve seen these two options in Word Options |
Transform how you format Word documents with keyboard shortcuts—going beyond the built‑in ones for Headings 1–3 by adding your own for Heading 4, 5, 6 (and beyond) that Microsoft has forgotten. With these simple tweaks, your document structuring becomes faster and more consistent. Word’s in-built Heading styles come with some shortcut keys, but
You might think that the hyphen is a simple small horizontal line … but no. There are NINE different hyphen or short horizontal line choices in Microsoft Word. The common ones (hypen, En-dash and Em-dash) have shortcuts in Word, Windows and Mac. Let’s start with the standard hyphen, actually called
There’s a little trap in Excel when figuring out the number of days between two dates. Excel has one way, but the real world has two others. It’s easy to forget the differences and it can matter when the date calculation is close to some limit, for example in a
Tired of Comic Sans but still want a casual, friendly font? Microsoft Office has better built-in alternatives or there’s many other fonts that keeps the charm without the cringe. Here’s a quick guide to upgrading your documents. The Wall Street Journal has a history of Comic Sans, the font that
Office Watch reader Steve G is having a problem in Word. The F9 key isn’t updating fields in a Word document. He suspects a buggy patch of Windows or Office. Here’s how to find the source of the Function key or any keypress problem and fix it. Hint – it’s
Use these handy Excel formulas for circle and sphere calculations! Whether they’re a distant memory from school days or a recent discovery, you can easily compute them using Pi (π), or as Excel dubs it, PI(). Many formulas rely on Pi 𝜋 so Excel has a simple function Pi() which
Fast access to important Outlook features! The ribbon in Outlook isn’t the only way to efficiently things done. Use the keyboard shortcuts that have been available in Outlook (Windows or Mac) for Microsoft 365 or Office 2024 and many earlier versions. Outlook for Windows Here are some keyboard shortcuts that
Quickly insert symbols, characters and emoji in Microsoft Word and Outlook without taking your fingers off the keyboard using a feature that’s been in Word (for Windows) for many years. Inserting Symbols into Word documents is a pain, go up to the ribbon Insert | Symbols | Symbol which takes
Having trouble changing Microsoft Word defaults? The ultimate way to change defaults is sure to work. It’s has been around since the very early days of Word and works for Outlook too! We often hear from people having trouble changing Word’s opening (default) settings for a new document. Various places
This is how to change Word’s Zoom to your preferred Zoom settings instead of the defaults. Ray R writes … “I have been having some vision problems lately and have found that using Word’s zoom dialog to increase the displayed font size without changing it in the document or email
Has there been a change Microsoft Word’s Footnotes settings or has the ‘Numbering’ choices (Continuous, Restart each page or section) remained the same? How much of Microsoft Office is really new, despite appearances? Office Watch reader “Joe L.” has done a big Microsoft Office leap from Office 2010 to the
Computers are being infected with at least eight different viruses in an attack that uses steganography to hide nasty code in images linked from Word and Excel documents. But there’s good news for most Office users. Steganography is a way to hide text or code in an image or object.
How can you buy an older version of Microsoft Office to fit in with your other computers? Fran, a loyal Office-Watch.com reader has that problem getting an older version of Office. “ I have Office 2013 on two computers now. Is there a way to get another copy for the new Microsoft Surface
Microsoft noted the 40th anniversary of Microsoft Word with a typically glossy and highly selective history plus some vague platitudes about the future of Word. Their graphic does show how far Word has come from its early days. Of course, plenty has been skipped over in this sanitized history. Like
Word and PowerPoint have options to embed a font into the document, so why doesn’t it work? In theory you can select the ‘Embed fonts’ option for a document / presentation and all the necessary fonts will be included in the document. That means the fonts will appear, as the
Type or enter the ° Degree symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Windows / Mac programs generally. Degree ° is a common symbol and should be available in most fonts. If not, try another font or one of the fonts with a very wide range of characters like Arial
There’s a simple Microsoft Word trick that lets you shrink the vertical space between lines. Specifically reducing to below single line spacing. To set less than 1 line space go to Paragraph | Line Spacing and choose ‘Multiple‘ – yes ‘Multiple’. Sounds screwy but it works. Set the Multiple line spacing value
There’s more possible with the humble ! exclamation mark / point in Microsoft Word or Office. At least five different ! available and that’s before changing color, size and other text effect options. We’ll show you ways to insert FIVE different exclamation marks into Office, as characters, icons, symbols and several
Here’s the ‘old-fashioned’ way to make a list of worksheet tab names. It’s old because the formula uses ” Get.Workbook() ” which is an Excel 4 macro function that’s now blocked in modern Excel for security reasons. See Excel 4 macros are now blocked and about time tooWe’re including this
Is it possible to use very old versions of Microsoft Office like Office 2000, Office XP (2002) or Office 2003 on Windows 10 or Windows 11. Should you even try? Office Watcher, Clyde R asks: “What is the oldest version of Office which would be loadable on Windows 10 Pro,
Don’t bother using cut / paste to manually sorting or adjusting a list. There’s a faster shortcut for moving a line or paragraph around a Word document which isn’t in the usual lists of Word keyboard shortcuts. Word has a simple shortcut to that move the current line or paragraph
