One of the sillier online debates is an argument about the usefulness of algebra and other maths skills in a world where Excel is available on almost any screen. To us this is silly because it’s not a simple either/or choice. It’s about balance, a concept that’s not fashionable these
The second Access memory leak has finally been patched by Microsoft, almost a year after a very similar problem was discovered. These bugs have been around since 2002 and the effects are still in some Access files. Both are faults in the way Access saves data to memory locations in
Pantone has announced its Color of the Year for 2020 here’s how to get it in Microsoft Office – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook etc. The color of 2020 is … Classic Blue Source: Pantone As usual what’s more amazing than the color is the description from the ‘Pantone Institute’. Classic
The venerable SUM() function in Excel is simple, really too simple. It just adds up a range of cells with no way to filter or limit what’s included. SumIF selects what to add-up from a longer list. SumIf sometimes confuses people because they, understandably, expect the range to be SUMmed
Microsoft Word has several ways to quickly insert placeholder text into documents. Sometimes you want to add some random text to a document as filler, but don’t want to think of something to write yourself. While there are websites that will generate placeholder text for you, it is also possible
Our articles about saving past events with anniversary reminders begs the question; How far back can Outlook save an event. The answer in Outlook for Windows, Mac and online is 1 April 1601. Trying to enter a date before 1st April 1601 brings up an error: “You must specify a
Here’s a practical example of how to share an appointment or event with reminders using the iCalendar .ics standard. Some Apollo 11 events ready to download and add to your calendar (in Outlook or other software). Outlook supports .ics files and so does most other calendar programs. They are small
Back in the 16th Century, italic fonts were invented and that trick can still be used today in Microsoft Word. Italics let you fit more text into the same space. An innovative Venetian publisher, Manutius, needed to make small and affordable books. Paper was expensive so anything that put more
Here’s some other problems with the Word Sort feature and tricks to work around them. Generally speaking, long or complex sorting is better done in Excel. Excel has much better data management features to split and sort. The final result can be copied into Word. Sort a list of names
Yet again, Microsoft Word is beaten by mere humans when we pit the software against words used in the 2019 Spelling Bee finals. We made a list of some words from the 2019 Spelling Bee finals including the last eight words which confirmed the winners. See for yourself how Microsoft
Excel has a new currency option. Bitcoin BTC is now available as a Currency symbol or text from the main list but we’ll show how to get it now on any version of Excel. There are four options available: Bitcoin symbol ₿ prefix ₿12.34 Bitcoin symbol ₿ suffix 12.34 ₿
How to easily make and receive appointments with other people using Outlook. This is a feature that’s been in Outlook for many, many years and so is often overlooked amid the hype for the latest ‘exciting’ thing from Microsoft. We’ll look at how to send an create an appointment to
One of the first major Word viruses, the Melissa virus, is 20 years old. It’s amazing to see how much and how little has changed over two decades. Office viruses today follow much the same pattern as they did back in the 20th Century. Melissa was a Word macro virus
In Japan there are two amazing uses of Excel. Excel used for displaying train timetables and to make beautiful works of art. The Michelangelo of Excel Tatsuo Horiuchi has become the Michelangelo of Excel. On retirement he wanted to turn to art but didn’t want the expense of paint, brushes
What can you do when Outlook won’t connect to a new mailbox no matter what you try? Long time Office Watch reader, Phil, found himself with an especially stubborn Outlook which would not connect to his new mailbox. He’s changed Office 365 mail servers so had to reconnect Outlook to
Does Excel have enough significant digits for Pi in the inbuilt Pi() function? Modern computing can calculate Pi to 3.14 trillion digits which is a good trick but even extreme situations only needs Pi to 15 significant digits. What’s extreme? How about interplanetary travel? JPL/NASA calculate the paths of probes
Word for Windows has three options for saving a document to a web page, Web Page, Single Web Page or Web Page, Filtered. Here’s a look at all three and how to choose the best option for you. What you choose depends on how much similarity you need between the
Here’s a quick and easy way to totally erase file, folders or free disk space so there’s no trace of the original data. Also erasing an entire drive before handing over or selling. As you may know, deleting a file doesn’t really remove it from your computer. Even after deleting
How can you tell if you’re reading email in a web browser or using email software like Outlook for Windows or Mac? This might seem obvious to some but many people use ’email’ without understanding the important difference between webmail and email programs. There are two ways to read and
If the Translation options in Microsoft Office don’t do it for you, try the Google Translate full document translation option instead. For a long time, Google has a word and text translation between languages. The app is a godsend to travelers around the world, and the locals dealing with them!
Pantone has announced its Color of the Year for 2019 but before you run off to grab color swatches, here’s how to get it in Microsoft Office – Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc. The color of 2019 is <drum roll> ….. Living Coral … As usual what’s more amazing than the
A judgement from the US Court of Appeals turned on the Word Count feature in Microsoft Word and how it differs from the rules for court submissions. Most courts have rules about the length of submission which, in this case, were accidently exceeded. The plaintiff is representing himself (‘pro se’)
An Australian university has developed a font that will help you remember what you read. It sounds like an April Fool’s joke, but the font is real and works in Office for Mac or Windows. Sans Forgetica was made at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Unlike most fonts, Sans Forgetica
A new report from Sophos shows how hacking via Office documents has changed of lot in 2018 with new attacks coming much faster than in the past. Microsoft’s assurances that a security bug (sorry ‘exploit’) hasn’t been used ‘in the wild’ doesn’t mean a lot. Office document hacks made in
