There’s a way for Microsoft Word to connect shapes with lines or arrows that remain connected when moved. We’ll explain the trick and why it’s needed in Word and Outlook but not other Office apps. As we’ve already explained, in Excel, PowerPoint and Publisher, you can connect shapes with lines
Microsoft Office can make drawings with linked lines or arrows between shapes that automatically change if the shapes are moved. Here’s how Office connectors work and the tricks to make connecting shapes work better. A little known but really useful part of the Insert | Shapes is the ability to
Türkiye is now the preferred name for the country Turkey. Here’s how to easily type Türkiye with the umlaut in Microsoft Office, Word and Outlook on Windows or Mac. It’s also a good example of the limits or traps in Word’s Autocorrect. A common trick for a change of name
Once you know the ‘secret’ shortcuts, it’s easy to type the umlaut vowels ä ë ï ö ü Ä Ë Ï Ö Ü in Word and Outlook but, alas, it’s not the same in Excel or PowerPoint. There are alternatives in Windows and Mac if you’re not using Word. There’s
Type the Satellite Antenna 📡 symbol/emoji into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Satellite Antenna or Dish 📡 symbol can be used for modern television, radio, GPS or wireless broadcasting generally. Can be used with the Satellite 🛰 emoji or icon.
The Washington Post has a ten-tip etiquette guide to which we’ve added our Microsoft Office & Outlook specific suggestions. Check out Danielle Abril’s article at The Washington Post. Her recommendations are necessarily general so we’ll add more technical and specific comments for Office users. Consider not sending an email So
The Editor part of Microsoft Word has a feature that should have been in the Windows and Mac versions many, many years ago. Changing the style of writing that’s being recommended. Word’s Editor pane sometimes lets you choose the style of writing that suits the document. We were delighted to
There’s a really useful Outlook (Windows and Mac) feature that Peter (our Grand Poo-bah or Editor in Chief) uses regularly even though it’s hidden away in Outlook menu: Resend. ‘Resend this message’ opens a new copy of a sent message with all the same details filled in (To, CC, Bcc,
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
If you know where to look, Microsoft Designer can make graphics big enough for a Microsoft Word page or PowerPoint slide in Microsoft Office, instead of the default social media sizes. We’ll explain how to resize to larger page formats including the missing page sizes. A concern with Designer is
Often you need to switch between windows of the same program, so there should be a quick keyboard shortcut to do that. Here are your options in Windows or Mac. Whether you’re moving between Word documents, Excel workbooks or PowerPoint decks or Outlook emails, the need is the same. You
Insert the Satellite 🛰 emoji or icon into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. How Satellite 🛰 looks in different fonts. In Windows fonts only Segoe UI Emoji and Segoe UI Symbol have the Satellite emoji. As usual the Apple version
Word lists have more power and, let’s face it, confusion hiding under the menus. How to start a new list, continue a previous list, reset the numbering and trying to figure out how a list numbering has been messed up. Many questions arising from our article on Word Autonumbering. Many
There’s a maximum of nine levels available in Word multi-level numbering. That’s enough for the seven dwarves plus two more. There’s a way to get more than nine levels. A Multilevel list setup shows 9 levels. Need more? Perhaps create a separate multilevel list with custom numbering starting at 10?
Word multi-level lists can get messed up with ‘wrong’ numbering appearing for no obvious reason. Here’s why it can happen, troubleshooting options and how to fix it. It’s too easy to mess up a seemingly normal multi-level list in Word. Options like ‘Start new list’ and ‘Continue from previous list’
Word has an amazing range of options for automatically numbering your document headings or paragraphs. Even more amazing is my visit to an office. I found staff going through a long document, laboriously numbering headings and sub-headings by hand! They been doing this for years and weren’t happy when shown this
There’s an obscure little Excel option that’s worth checking to give you a little performance boost. The choice is File | Option | Advanced | Print | “Include fonts that are stored on the printer” An obscure option that most people never bother with. “Printer fonts” are fonts in the
Excel 365 for Windows and web have a different font for the formula bar. The monospace font should be easier to read and understand. For as long as there’s been Excel, formulas have been shown in a proportional font. Probably to fit as much text into the available screen space.
Excel 365 for Windows and Web is getting a great new feature called Value Preview. You’ll be able to see the current value of any formula part just by hovering over it. It’s simple and most people won’t even notice it except by accident. Just hover the mouse over part
Selecting the exact color from a sample on the screen is best done with one of the PowerToys for Windows 11 and Windows 10 – Color Picker. Unlike the color selector in Office, the PowerToy Color Picker can choose from any visible part of the screen with a keyboard shortcut.
Office for Mac has quite different and extensible color selection options for text, shapes, pages etc. that are the envy of Office for Windows. We’ll explain them all, eyedropper, swatch, color wheel or sliders, palettes and even pencils. Choose from the same range of colors as Windows, but in many
Here’s all the match colors, color picking or color grab tools in Microsoft Office for Windows or Windows itself. While Office for Mac users have it a lot easier with one central ‘eyedropper’ to choose a color from the screen. Naming the color picking tool isn’t consistent in Microsoft Office,
Google Sheets can now support Python code in a similar but cheaper way than Python in Excel 365 Neptyne has released a Python Add-on for Google Sheets which works in much the same way at the newly released Python extension to Excel 365. The add on includes ‘spilling’ results to
Need a Halloween emoji or symbol? Here’s a quick and searchable list of more than 30 spooky, scary emoji for documents, sheets, slides, emails or messages that you can use or copy. In Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and Office 2019 there are also Halloween icons and symbols for Word, Powerpoint
