=Rand.old() is a Word trick which adds common sentences that use all, or most, of the letters in that language’s alphabet. Here’s what Word does in English, French, German, Danish, Polish and many other languages. It’s useful filler text for testing formatting or other Word features just like “Lorem Ipsum
We’re going to talk about creating indexes in Microsoft Word. ‘Real’ books often have an index at the back which Word can create for you. An index is a list of terms or topics that can be found within the document. Microsoft Word has the ‘fixings’ to make an index
Re-creating the “Don’t be a Spock” sign in Word wasn’t hard especially since the original sign seen at the laboratory was probably made in Microsoft Word. Here are some comments on the design. The standard Arial font was used throughout. The two images and captions are in a 2 x
You’ve received a document, but when you try to open it, the file stubbornly won’t appear! We explain how to fix it. Our editor-in-chief saw that problem in an Internet cafe‚ in Ketchikan, Alaska and was surprised when neither the manager of the store nor the cruise computer ‘expert’ knew the
Type the Broken Vertical Bar ¦ in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Broken Vertical Bar ¦ symbol was sometimes used in computing. These days there’s no specific use for the broken vertical bar but it’s good to keep in mind
‘Spy Pixels’ is the new name for a common tracking method used in commercial emails. We’ve written about them many times over the 20+ years of Office-Watch.com, the only new thing is the name. What are Spy Pixels? So called ‘Spy Pixels’ are tiny images (1 pixel only) linked in
How to use AutoCorrect for more than a word or single character. It can speed up typing of large blocks of text or expanding an acronym into the full name. Paul G writes: “Autocorrect is fantastic for the numerous standard letters, or specific instructions for various computer actions (downloads, etc).
Type the four Playing Card symbols Spade ♠ Hearts ♥Diamonds♦ or Clubs♣ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. The card symbols have uses beyond playing cards. Diamond ♦ can be a bullet symbol. ♥ heart has many uses, not all
Benford’s Law is an amazing tool that is simple to use in Excel. Benford’s Law is one of those mathematical laws that seems to defy common sense but works for most naturally occurring number sets. It says that in most groups of naturally occurring numbers, the leading digit 1 will
How to convert metric to imperial and other measure conversions in Excel. Converting measurements from one system to another can be done by Excel using the CONVERT function … here’s how it works and then we’ll tell you what CONVERT can’t do or should do better. As usual, we decided
A quick way to type a ü tick or check mark character in Word. Another great Autocorrect suggestion from Morris B. ” … the one that I have found the most useful is to replace ‘./’ with a tick (wingdings 252 – or wingdings 254) “ Using the fullstop/period is
One of the eternal questions to Office Watch is about adding characters to an Office document. Symbols and characters not on the keyboard. The most common requests are for adding currency symbols like Pound £ Euro € or Yen/Renminbi ¥ but can also include the @ symbol which can, even
The UK has been embarrassed (again) with the news that around 16,000 COVID-19 test results were missing from the official database and so contact tracing wasn’t done. The culprit? Excel. Or, to be fair, bad use of Excel is to blame. Not understanding it’s limits and how to workaround them.
The secret to a timeline chart in Excel is the data. Emily writes asking “How can I make an Excel chart with dates on the X axis with a proper time scale – even if the dates aren’t regular? “ We could not understand Emily’s question until we asked for
The names of genes are being changed just to stop Excel confusing them with dates during the import process. We’ll explain two ways Excel already works to avoid the geneticist’s problem. Genes named like MARCH1 and SEPT1 which Excel converts into dates when imported the wrong way, usually directly via
Why does Excel change what people type or import, sometimes in ways they don’t want? It’s the General cell format that messes with what you type or import. It’s the default cell format ‘General’. It’s top of the Formats list and most of us haven’t given it a second thought.
Getting started with Word’s footnotes and endnotes. Footnotes is one of those Word features that’s been around for a long time and so it often ignored in all the hoopla about new features. In this article we’ll have a close look at Footnotes and Endnotes. In Word there are Footnotes
The Excel team has joined the current ‘Cake’ meme with a new Cake() function in Excel. Hilarity ensues … Source: Twitter Ho ho, very funny, it is to laugh. Most people took the message in good spirit with one person implementing it in VBA That code really works. ChrW() returns
Outlook can record appointments in the Calendar but it can also record ‘recurring’ appointments for things that happen on a regular schedule. We’ll show you how to make a repeating appointment and suggest some ways it can be used that might not be immediately obvious. Repeating Appointments 101 To make
Headline your next document with cats! Looking for something really different to headline your next document or presentation – why not use ‘Neko Font’ the font made out of cats. Strictly this isn’t a font you can download, instead you type text into a web page, choose the size (Large,
Elon Musk and partner have named their child X Æ A-12 (no kidding) how do you type Æ in Microsoft Word and Office generally. The child’s name doesn’t trigger any spelling or grammar errors in Word. No squiggly lines. What is Æ ? Æ or æ is a a-e ligature
Nirsoft’s SearchMyFiles has received a major boost. It can now search inside Office documents and PDF’s. SearchMyFiles is the Windows search tool that should be included with Windows. It’s interface might be old-fashioned but all the options are visible, including some not available in Windows. Some of the highlights in
Word has six shortcuts to make horizontal lines, here’s how they work, change them, color the lines and how to stop lines when they get out of control. All six line shortcuts There are six horizontal line shortcuts. For each one type the same character three times at the start
Adding some text, an arrow or graphic to an image should be an easy task in Word … and it is … once you know the trick. You can insert an image into Word or a Word created email in Outlook but the defaults make it hard to add overlays.