Yes, Microsoft Word lets you select vertical (up or down) text blocks. Most text selection in Word involves selecting horizontally – selecting a line or a paragraph of text. Sometimes, though, you need to select a vertical slab of text. To do that, hold down the Alt key while you
Here are the exact colour codes and new names for the ‘Overground’ lines in London, plus how to add a thick double line in Office documents just like on a Tube map. The changeover is happening in late November 2024. Some old rail lines in London were coloured Orange on
There’s a hidden trap in Microsoft Excel’s DateDif function that rarely gets a mention and is too easy to overlook. DateDif() is a long-standing Excel function that returns the duration between two dates. It’s not a ‘full’ Excel function because it was added for compatibility with Lotus 123 and has
Understanding the difference between Excel’s stored value for a cell and its displayed value is important. It happens a lot and can make a big difference to the results. Back in the day we detailed a bug in Excel 2007 where the wrong number appears on the screen yet Excel
How to get the official Porsche color “Turbonite” in Microsoft Office for Word documents, PowerPoint slides and more. The color has been announced by Pantone with the code PMS-2336-C. Porsche Turbonite is described in the usual flowery terms by Pantone: Turbonite color codes It’s easy to apply the Turbonite color
If you often hit the CapsLock key by accident,sending part of your text into unwanted ALL-CAPS mode, you’re not alone. But rather than letting it stay a nuisance, you can repurpose it or disable it altogether. Stop accidentally turns CAPS ON when you don’t want it. On Windows or Mac
Excel is now 40 years old and it’s capable of some amazing things. Let’s not forget some of the mistakes made by users and serious bugs by Microsoft along the way. First a reminder of some Excel bugs and how Microsoft never seems to learn from their mistakes. Excel bug
Make it easier to see your current cell in an Excel workbook by dynamically highlighting the selected row, column, cell or headings. Here’s obvious and more subtle highlighting options plus the downside of highlighting, real world tips and debugging tricks if you’re having trouble. There are many different variations on
You can sort paragraphs, lists and tables in a Word document with all manner of tricks available under the simple ribbon button. Following our look at different alphabetical orders, here’s a look at the sorting options in Word. Select the list or paragraphs then choose Home | Paragraph | Sort.
Excel can make bar charts in-cell without bothering with the full Chart system. Despite what you might have seen, there’s plenty of options in Excel Data Bars. The usual example of Excel Data Bars has the colored bar in the same cell as the value. In this article we’ll show
Ever wondered what font is used in a famous logo? There’s a fascinating collection of familiar brands with their names replaced with the font name. Emanuele Abrate has made Logofonts, for example the Starbucks logo with the font name, FreightSans Black. Nike uses Futura. WhatsApp with HelveticaNeue. YouTube uses AlternativeGothic
An 85-year-old blunder has just been fixed at Westminster Abbey to change the spelling to Brontë with the important diaresis. Here’s how to type an ë in Word and other matters arising. Here’s how the memorial to the Brontë sisters looked in Poets Corner until a few days ago. For
There are plenty of audio and music options available in PowerPoint if you want to give your audience a break from your voice. We’ll go beyond the simple ‘adding music’ help to give some practical advice for audio in presentations: You will find the audio basics at Insert | Media |
The BBC has a great collection of over 16,000 sound effects that you can add to your PowerPoint presentations. Use them as a trigger sound for a click on a presentation, as a novel background noise or even an alert sound on your computer or smartphone. Sound Effects Galore Exploring
Add something special to the start of your Word document with a banner image with text. We’ll explain how to do that with free tools like Copilot or Designer. We were inspired by a Microsoft promotion which wrongly said that a Microsoft 365 subscription with Copilot Pro is required, when
Here’s the basics of Styles in Word for paragraph, character or both (Linked) plus Tables and Lists. I know talking about styles in Word makes eyes glaze over but they are a really useful part of Word (plus Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook). Today I watched an ‘experienced’ Word user reformatting
What to do if Excel’s columns have numbers across the top instead of letters. There’s a simple setting to switch between two different ways of labelling cells. You open an Excel workbook and the column headings look all wrong – instead of letters (A, B C …) there are numbers.
In-cell charts in Excel provide a powerful method to visualize data trends and patterns. They allow you to quickly derive insights within a worksheet, making information interpretation more straightforward without fussing about with full charts. We’ll explain how to make in-cell charts and then go further and show how to
How to lock your Excel worksheet from editing – the whole thing or some cells. Allow some people to edit a few cells, leaving the rest of the cells and formulas untouchable by others using the worksheet. Here’s a very simple example: Anyone opening the worksheet can enter a US
Discover how to adjust bullet point spacing in Microsoft Word with the two key settings to achieve precise bullet point alignment and formatting. Learning the techniques to perfect your bullet points can make a significant difference in readability and presentation. There are TWO places to change the position of the
How to stop Outlook grouping Inbox messages, most commonly by date. “Today”, “Yesterday” etc. which might suit some people but is a right nuisance to others. This is an option in Outlook (classic) for Windows which can appear, seemingly for no good reason. It’s not in Outlook (new). Some people
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
We went hunting for koalas in Microsoft Office. Found more than 18 of the cuddly marsupials for Word, PowerPoint or Outlook. There are emoji, Office icons, SVG, online images and more making a colony or cling of koala (either can be the collective noun for koala). None of the endangered
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
