Tim Harford has an interesting long read on spreadsheets from its origins in the late 14th Century Italy to modern Excel with diversions into smallpox, Enron, Covid and even teasing Bill Gates. The Tyranny of Spreadsheets is on the Financial Times web site. It’s usually firewalled but the link should,
How to embed the necessary fonts into a Word document so everything is included that the receiver needs to view and edit it. You’ve made a document, it looks great and you send it off to someone or a print shop. They call complaining that it looks weird and claiming
PowerPoint can show slides on a screen as a high-tech signboard, using a self-running presentation known as Kiosk display. Here’s how to do it plus all the settings and tricks available. We’ve all seen screens displaying information on a series of slides – maybe in a shop or conference. Maybe
OneDrive has quietly boosted one of its most important features, the ability to synchronize more than one account on the same computer or portable device. Here’s how for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android. It’s possible to sync almost all the OneDrive accounts you have access to. A personal OneDrive
How to type Ghana Cedi currency character in Windows or Office, especially Word. After our article about inserting Numero and other symbols into Office – trust an Office Watch reader to find a character not available in a supplied Windows / Office font: ” The currency in Ghana is the
Microsoft Word has footnotes and endnotes features but it’s surprisingly clumsy when it come to the common need for footnotes immediately after a table. Normally, Word puts Footnotes at the bottom of the page but for tables (and occasionally pictures or diagrams) you want them immediately after the table like
Here’s how to stop Microsoft Office for Mac from automatically updating itself and why you might want to do refresh the Office apps. Office 2019 / 2016 for Mac All versions of Office for Mac that have current support (currently Office 2016 and later) get: updates to fix bugs in
Microsoft changes what’s displayed in Excel Map Charts depending on your location and Microsoft’s policies in certain countries like China. We’ve had reports from people in China and Hong Kong that they can’t ‘see’ Taiwan on their Excel Map Charts. In most of the world, China and Taiwan show up
How to type the ‘Numero’ symbol and other special characters – there’s many ways to do it in Word and Office. It all started with a single, seemingly simple, question from a reader. As often happens, the question opens up a whole range of options in Office Entering the Numero sign
How to sort a list using a hidden or unseen column in a Microsoft Word table. Sometimes you want to sort a list in a way that isn’t apparent to the reader. To continue our Apollo theme, here’s a list of the twelve men who walked on the moon with
You can hide a table column in Word, all it takes is a little trickery and ignoring Microsoft’s advice! Sometimes you want to hide a table column in a Word document but according to Microsoft you can’t do it. Here’s how to do it anyway. It’s true that there’s no
Google Maps is invaluable for getting around, especially in an unknown city. Corporate rivalry means there’s no proper integration between Microsoft Outlook and Google Maps There’s not even a mapping button in the Outlook appointments view. Contacts have a ‘Map it’ button but not ‘Location’ in an appointment – for
A few annoying things in Excel 365 / 2019 / 2021 / LTSC Map charts that Microsoft should fix. We’ll explain the traps and some workarounds. Making our COVID-19 Vaccination workbook reminded us of some anomalies in Excel Map Charts. Always check the Map area options Whenever using the Map
Join us in a hunt for face mask graphics and icons to use in Word documents and PowerPoint slides. Use fask mask icons in signs. See Social Distancing signs in Microsoft Word More ideas for social distancing signs Icons The obvious place for Office 365 customers to look is Microsoft’s
We’ve all seen the standard Find/Replace in Microsoft Word, either the ‘new’ pane or the older dialog box. Like so much else in Word, there’s a lot more available than the obvious features. Here’s a look at some of tricks. Press Ctrl + F to start a Find. In recent
Microsoft Word’s Replace does a lot more than just replacing one bit of text for another. It can quickly change formatting, enforce a style, paste from clipboard and use special characters. You’re probably familiar with the basics. Press Ctrl + H to open the Replace dialog. Type in the text
For just US$2,000 you can buy a way to hack into a computer via Microsoft Office. All you need to make your own malware is the money and a willing seller on the dark web. A recent survey by Trend Micro and reported by Dark Reading searching posts that advertised
Microsoft has been getting serious about drawing features in Office so we thought it was time to look at what’s available and possible across all the Office applications. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and some nice drawing stuff in OneNote Once upon a time, drawing onto a Word document or Excel worksheet
Make a draft email on a phone or tablet (maybe some quick notes) to later revise and send from Outlook for Windows/Mac. Once that was a problem but not any more, as long as you’re using Outlook mobile apps. Syncronizing the Drafts folder is really useful. You can write a
Getting to Outlook Forms and Templates is a hassle, hidden deep down in the menus. It’s possible to bypass all those clicks and open the Choose Form dialog directly and even a specific library. See Email templates give you faster messages in Outlook The published way to access templates and
Hyphenating words in Word has many choices; manual, optional, compulsory (non-breaking) and fully automatic. Manual Hyphen The simple one we all know. Type the – on the keyboard (properly known as the Hypen-Minus) to hyphenate a word, e.g. choreo-animator. See Of hyphens, em-dash, en-dash and more Automatic hyphenation Word will
Here are four different ways to make a new email from an Outlook template file without the hassle of going deep into Outlook’s menus. You can choose to start a template based message from Windows or a button inside Outlook. See Email templates give you faster messages in Outlook for
Here’s how to add a taste of the logo or text from ‘Friends’ sitcom to a Word document, PowerPoint slide or other document. That includes the important dots between letters. All you need is available online plus a little Office trickery. Note for old-timers (like Peter, our Editor-in-Chief). ‘Friends’ was
For emails that you send regularly, there’s a way to have a ‘boilerplate’ email template with most of the details already filled in. Messages can be sent faster and be more consistent. Welcome to the little-known world of Outlook email templates. Outlook email templates can have all the message details
